To be on the safe side in case there are other characters at the end of the string, use:
> mytext <- "I do not want the first number 1234, but the second number > 5678sadfsadffdsa" > # make sure you get 4 digits > sub("^.*second number[^[0-9]]*([0-9]{4}).*", "\\1", mytext) [1] "5678" > On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Lorenzo Cattarino <l.cattar...@uq.edu.au> wrote: > I R-users, > > I am trying to find the way to manipulate a character string to select a 4 > digit number after some specific word/s. Example: > > mytext <- "I do not want the first number 1234, but the second number 5678" > > Is there any function that allows you to select a certain number of digits > (in this case 5678) after a particular word/s (e.g., second number) > > Thank you for your help > > Lorenzo > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > 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 Data Munger Guru What is the problem that 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.