The result of the gsub function gets distorted. Any idea why?

Question

I get distorted output when I try to replace the question mark symbol by the digit zero. Given below my code.

x <- c(2,3,"m","M","b","?")
x1 <- gsub("m|M","6",x)
x1
#[1] "2" "3" "6" "6" "b" "?"
x1 <- gsub("?","0",x)
x1
#[1] "020" "030" "0m0" "0M0" "0b0" "0?0"

Anybody have any idea why this happens? Any help would be appreciated.

`gsub("\\?","0",x)` You need to escape the `?` as it is a special character. — Ronak Shah, May 18 '18 at 07:39

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 18 '18 at 07:38

2

The ? is a metacharacter, we need to escape ("\?") or place it inside square brackets

gsub("[?]", "0", x1)

Or use fixed = TRUE

gsub("?", "0", x1, fixed = TRUE)

answered May 18 '18 at 07:38

akrun

1

Worked like a charm. Thank you! Any idea what should we do if want to replace null character with zero? – 008 May 18 '18 at 09:01
I checked it out. Any solution for the empty element ("") replacement? – 008 May 18 '18 at 09:27
@PaulDavis I couldn't find the empty element in your example\ – akrun May 18 '18 at 09:36

1 Answers1