I think it is as simple as adding the argument fixed=TRUE to the function call.
txt = "this. is. a. test."
gsub(".", "", txt, fixed = TRUE)
result
[1] "this is a test"
HTH,
Peter
On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 9:49 PM, Sparks, John James <jspa...@uic.edu> wrote:
> Dear R Users,
>
> I am working with gsub for the first time. I am trying to remove some
> characters from a string. I have hit the problem where the period is the
> shorthand for 'everything' in the R language when what I want to remove is
> the actual periods. In the example below, I simply want to remove the
> periods as I have removed the comma, but instead the complete string is
> wiped out. I would appreciate it if someone could let me know how I
> communicate that I want to remove the period verbatim to R.
>
> Many thanks.
> --John Sparks
>
>> txt="This is a test. However, it is only a test."
>> txt2<-gsub(",","",txt)
>> txt2
> [1] "This is a test. However it is only a test."
>> txt3<-gsub(".","",txt)
>> txt3
> [1] ""
>>
>
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