R - regex, replace string between '

Asked Dec 13 '16 at 16:21

Active Dec 13 '16 at 16:33

Viewed 53 times

I tried to find a solution for this for a very long time and any other question with this topic just wouldn't give me the needed answer. I am trying to replace the string between ' ' with an empty string, so deleting it.

I have

    pattern <- "      'ABV22341.1 profilin-like protein'"

and I am trying to use gsub() like

    gsub(*insert regex here*, "", pattern)

but I am struggling to find a matching expression, I only find expressions that match everything except the whitespaces at the beginning.

Is there a good solution? I would really appreciate it!

Edit

The desired output would be

    [1] "      ''"

edited Dec 13 '16 at 16:33

asked Dec 13 '16 at 16:21

Jen Mer

So what exactly was that expression? – Wiktor Stribiżew Dec 13 '16 at 16:22
1

I found `gsub("\'.*\'", "", pattern)` as an expression, which also matches the ', which I don't want – Jen Mer Dec 13 '16 at 16:28
Whoops, sorry, yes, I've copied the exclusion across from the example. +1 to you. – p-robot Dec 13 '16 at 16:29
Can you please edit the question so that we're provided with an example of the desired output? – p-robot Dec 13 '16 at 16:31
Use `gsub("'[^']*'", "''", pattern)` – Wiktor Stribiżew Dec 13 '16 at 17:05
@WiktorStribiżew thanks! never thought about this solution.. – Jen Mer Dec 13 '16 at 17:09
You are welcome. No backreferences are even necessary here. – Wiktor Stribiżew Dec 13 '16 at 17:21

R - regex, replace string between '

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