Hi Davis, Please try ??regex gsub("(\\-|\\+)([0-9]+)(\\w*)(\\w)", replacement="\\4", x) ----- A R learner. -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Deleting-a-variable-number-of-characters-from-a-string-tp2291754p2291797.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.