Time to spend some time with the docs!
?egexp
tells you:
". (Only ^ - \ ] are special inside character classes.)"
See also inline below.
Cheers,
Bert
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Juliet Hannah
<juliet.hannah@gmail.com>wrote:
> Is it correct that one does not need to escape special characters such as
> "*" (are these
> properly called metacharacters) inside []. If so, what is the logic to
> this?
>
Huh? Are you aware that regular expressions are actually a context free
grammar IIRC (computer science gurus, please confirm or correct)?
>
> mytest <- "he*llo"
> sub("[*]","",mytest)
> sub("\\*","",mytest)
>
> [] is easier to read for me than \\. Is this what people tend to use?
>
That would require a survey to answer, would it not? Tastes vary, as they
say.
> Thanks.
>
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>
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>
--
Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
Internal Contact Info:
Phone: 467-7374
Website:
http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm
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