[R] Removing a dollar sign from a character vector

[Jeff Newmiller]

The "end of string" special meaning only applies when the dollar sign is at the right end of the string (as it was in the OP attempt). That is,  it is NOT generally necessary to wrap it in brackets to remove the special meaning unless it would otherwise be at the end of the pattern string. 
-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On February 10, 2016 10:10:40 PM PST, William Dunlap via R-help <r-help at r-project.org> wrote:
>   > y
>   [1] "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$2,600.00 " "$2,600.00 "
>   > gsub("$", "", y)
> [1] "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$2,600.00 " "$2,600.00 “ #
>no change. Why?
>
>"$" as a regular expression means "end of string", which has zero
>length -
>replacing "end
>of string" with nothing does not affect the string.  Try gsub("$",
>"DOLLAR", "$100")
>to see it do something.
>
>Use either fixed=TRUE so the 'pattern'  argument is not regarded as a
>regular expression or pattern="\\$" or pattern="[$]" to remove dollar's
>special
>meaning in the pattern language.
>
>Read up on regular expressions (probably there is a See Also entry in
>help(gsub)).
>
>
>Bill Dunlap
>TIBCO Software
>wdunlap tibco.com
>
>On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:39 PM, James Plante <jimplante at me.com> wrote:
>
>> What I’ve got:
>> # sessionInfo()
>> R version 3.2.3 (2015-12-10)
>> Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0 (64-bit)
>> Running under: OS X 10.11.3 (El Capitan)
>>
>> locale:
>> [1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8
>>
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>>
>> other attached packages:
>> [1] XML_3.98-1.3 dplyr_0.4.3
>>
>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>> [1] magrittr_1.5      R6_2.1.2          assertthat_0.1   
>rsconnect_0.4.1.4
>> [5] parallel_3.2.3    DBI_0.3.1         tools_3.2.3       Rcpp_0.12.3
>>
>> > str(y) #toy vector, subset of larger vector in a dataframe of
>~4,600
>> rows.
>>  chr [1:5] "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$2,600.00 "
>"$2,600.00 “
>>
>> y is a subset of a column in a dataframe that’s too big to post. I
>tried
>> the commands listed here on the dataframe and it didn’t work. So I’m
>using
>> a small subset to find out where my error is. It’s being a PITA, and
>I’m
>> trying to solve it. What I want is a vector of numbers: 1000, 1000,
>1000,
>> 2600, 2,600.
>>
>> What I’ve tried:
>> > y
>> [1] "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$2,600.00 " "$2,600.00 "
>> > gsub("$", "", y)
>> [1] "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$1,000.00 " "$2,600.00 " "$2,600.00 “
># no
>> change. Why?
>> > gsub(".00", "", y)  # note: that’s dot zero zero, replace with “"
>> [1] "$10 " "$10 " "$10 " "$2, " "$2, “  #WTF?
>>
>> I’ve also tried sapply and apply, but haven’t yet tried a loop.
>(These
>> were done in desperation; gsub ought to work the way the help says.)
>I’ve
>> tried lots more than is listed here, over and over, with no results.
>I’d be
>> grateful for any guidance you can provide.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Jim Plante
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
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>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>PLEASE do read the posting guide
>http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

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