R help - Nov 2015 - Extracting part of alpha numeric string

Hi,

I have a field with alpha numeric codes like,

2154333b-3208-4519-8b76-acaef5b5a479 980958a0-103b-4ba9-afaf-27b2f5c24e69
00966654-0dea-4899-b8cf-26e8300b262d
I want a derived field which will contain ONLY the numeric part before the
first alphabet and the first '-',

for example the derived field from the sample above will give me

2154333
980958
00966654

How can this be achieved in R?

P.S. I do not have much knowledge on regex. It would be of great help if
you could suggest some reading for beginners.

Thanks,
Abhinaba

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fields <- c("2154333b-3208-4519-8b76-acaef5b5a479",
"980958a0-103b-4ba9-afaf-27b2f5c24e69",
            "00966654-0dea-4899-b8cf-26e8300b262d")
sub("^([0-9]*).*$", "\\1", fields)

Best,

Philippe Grosjean
> On 30 Nov 2015, at 11:39, Abhinaba Roy <abhinabaroy09 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have a field with alpha numeric codes like,
> 
> 2154333b-3208-4519-8b76-acaef5b5a479 980958a0-103b-4ba9-afaf-27b2f5c24e69
> 00966654-0dea-4899-b8cf-26e8300b262d
> I want a derived field which will contain ONLY the numeric part before the
> first alphabet and the first '-',
> 
> for example the derived field from the sample above will give me
> 
> 2154333
> 980958
> 00966654
> 
> How can this be achieved in R?
> 
> P.S. I do not have much knowledge on regex. It would be of great help if
> you could suggest some reading for beginners.
> 
> Thanks,
> Abhinaba
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Hey,

worked like a charm! :)

Could you please explain about

sub("^([0-9]*).*$", "\\1", fields)

Thanks,
Abhinaba

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 4:47 PM, <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> fields <- c("2154333b-3208-4519-8b76-acaef5b5a479",
> "980958a0-103b-4ba9-afaf-27b2f5c24e69",
>             "00966654-0dea-4899-b8cf-26e8300b262d")
> sub("^([0-9]*).*$", "\\1", fields)
>
> Best,
>
> Philippe Grosjean
>
> > On 30 Nov 2015, at 11:39, Abhinaba Roy <abhinabaroy09 at
gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a field with alpha numeric codes like,
> >
> > 2154333b-3208-4519-8b76-acaef5b5a479
980958a0-103b-4ba9-afaf-27b2f5c24e69
> > 00966654-0dea-4899-b8cf-26e8300b262d
> > I want a derived field which will contain ONLY the numeric part before
> the
> > first alphabet and the first '-',
> >
> > for example the derived field from the sample above will give me
> >
> > 2154333
> > 980958
> > 00966654
> >
> > How can this be achieved in R?
> >
> > P.S. I do not have much knowledge on regex. It would be of great help
if
> > you could suggest some reading for beginners.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Abhinaba
> >
> >       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
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