How to Replace the string inside the semicolon and the comma to "X" using R regex.
Input:
My name : Harry, Age : 23, Address : London,
Output:
My name : X, Age : X, Address : X,
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3 Answers
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gsub(": .*?,", ": X,", "My name : Harry, Age : 23, Address : London,")
#[1] "My name : X, Age : X, Address : X,"
Dan
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while this answer works, and although it is not to the best question, I feel like the answer could still do with some explanation. In R's help guidance for regex the use of `?` is explained as "The preceding item is optional and will be matched at most once." I do not understand how this causes the `.*` part to limit itself to its shortest option. – Aaron Hayman Jun 25 '19 at 13:12
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1@AaronHayman Adding the question mark effectively causes `.*` to be reluctant as opposed to greedy. There's a nice discussion [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5319840/greedy-vs-reluctant-vs-possessive-quantifiers). – Dan Jun 25 '19 at 13:22
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you can use gsub
gsub( "[a-zA-Z0-9]+[,]",": X, ","My name : Harry, Age : 23, Address : Londo")
MatthewR
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1Output for above code would be : ```"My name : X, Harry, Age : X, 23, Address : X, Londo"``` – Anshuman Jun 25 '19 at 12:51
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You can use the gsub, This performs greedy search substitution.
gsub(':[^,]+,',': X,',"My name : Harry, Age : 23, Address : London,")
## [1] "My name : X, Age : X, Address : X,"
The regex will look for sequences that match the discription in the first argument.
[^,]+ matches to a sequence that contains no commas, this ensures that only the next comma can be considered as part of the overall sequence.
Aaron Hayman
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