This will work: > sub(".*\\.\\.", "", "test.a..34") [1] "34"
This say match all characters upto and including the two periods. You have to escape the periods since they have special meaning in regular expression (match a character). On Jan 8, 2008 6:08 PM, Charilaos Skiadas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If this is really the case you are dealing with, wouldn't strsplit do > the job more easily? > > On Jan 8, 2008, at 5:47 PM, Thomas Pujol wrote: > > > I have a text string "test.a..34" > > > > I wish to extract the text that comes after ".." (e.g. "34"), and > > the text that comes before ".." (e.g. "test.a"). > > > > What is a good way to do this? Also, can you help me understand > > how to use "wildcards" such as "*" with sub, etc? > > > > > > #This seems to work, but I am unclear how it works: > > sub("\\*..", "", "test.a..34") > > > > #This does not work: > > sub("\\*..", "", "test.a..34") > > > Those two lines look the same to me, and they don't work. > Perhaps you wanted: sub("\\.\\.", "", "test.a..34") > > Have you looked at ?regex ? > > Haris Skiadas > Department of Mathematics and Computer Science > Hanover College > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > 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. > -- Jim Holtman Cincinnati, OH +1 513 646 9390 What is the problem you are trying to solve? ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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.