How to remove whitespace before and after @

Question

How can I remove space before and after @?

For example,

safety@ gmail.com / ghjv@gmail.com
gjhv_mf6 @ hotmail.com,hhty @gmail.com

the desired output will be:

safety@gmail.com / ghjv@gmail.com
gjhv_mf6@hotmail.com,hhty@gmail.com

`gsub(' *@ *','@','gjhv_mf6 @ hotmail.com')` – OganM Apr 25 '19 at 01:27 — OganM, Apr 25 '19 at 01:27
you beat me by 25 seconds ... – Ben Bolker Apr 25 '19 at 01:27 — Ben Bolker, Apr 25 '19 at 01:27

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 25 '19 at 01:27

gsub() should do it.

string_vec <- c("safety@ gmail.com / ghjv@gmail.com",
            "gjhv_mf6 @ hotmail.com,hhty @gmail.com")
gsub(" *@ *","@",string_vec)

If you want to remove all whitespace (including tabs etc.), follow this question:

gsub("[[:space:]]*@[[:space:]]*", "@", string_vec)

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 25 '19 at 01:40

1

Another option it to remove optional whitespace before and after "@".

Using @BenBolker's data

gsub("\\s?@\\s?", "@", string_vec)
#[1] "safety@gmail.com / ghjv@gmail.com"   "gjhv_mf6@hotmail.com,hhty@gmail.com"

OR with stringr::str_replace_all

stringr::str_replace_all(string_vec, "\\s?@\\s?", "@")

answered Apr 25 '19 at 01:40

Ronak Shah

FWIW `?` (instead of `*`) will match only 0 or 1 instances of whitespace -- won't match many spaces in a row (but we don't know what the OP wants) – Ben Bolker Apr 25 '19 at 02:18

2 Answers2