Is there a digit separator in R like using underscore in Python?

Question

In Python there is a way to make large numerals more readable using the underscore, e.g. 1000000 == 1_000_000, as discussed several times here. However, is there something similar in R?

Googling it just leads me to how to format the variable as a string using format and formatC. I already tried 1_000, 1 000, 1'000 and 1,000 but they only produce error messages. Is there really no workaround?

Not to my knowledge... but a workaround would be to write number as string with _ or , and then use gsub to remove the _ or , as you parse them to numeric. — bricx, Nov 19 '21 at 16:43
I believe this is the very reason people use scientific notation. Why not just use `10e6` ? — GuedesBF, Nov 19 '21 at 17:35
Here is discussion on the R mailing list about the implementation of this feature: https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2022-July/081874.html — nukubiho, Aug 17 '22 at 19:40

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 19 '21 at 16:45

1

Something like this:

as.numeric(gsub("_","", "1_000_000"))

answered Nov 19 '21 at 16:45

bricx

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If you put that in a function it would look even nicer, e.g. `no_("1_000_000")` . – user2554330 Nov 19 '21 at 18:18

Is there a digit separator in R like using underscore in Python?

1 Answers1