Hi, This should also work: do.call(data.frame,lapply(netw,function(x) gsub("^ *(\\D+) \\w+$","\\1",x))) A.K.
________________________________ From: Biau David <djmb...@yahoo.fr> To: arun <smartpink...@yahoo.com>; r help list <r-help@r-project.org> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 12:02 PM Subject: Re: [R] extracting character values OK, here is a minimal working example: au1 <- c('biau dj', 'jones kb', 'van den hoofs j', ' biau dj', 'biau dj', 'campagna r', 'biau dj', 'weiss kr', 'verdegaal sh', 'riad s') au2 <- c('weiss kr', 'ferguson pc', ' greidanus nv', ' porcher r', 'ferguson pc', 'pessis e', 'leclerc p', 'biau dj', 'bovee jv', 'biau d') au3 <- c('bhumbra rs', 'lam b', 'garbuz ds', NA, 'chung p', ' biau dj', 'marmor s', 'bhumbra r', 'pansuriya tc', NA) netw <- data.frame(au1, au2, au3) res <- data.frame(matrix(NA, nrow=dim(netw)[1], ncol=dim(netw)[2])) for (i in 1:dim(netw)[2]) { wh <- regexpr('[a-z]{3,}', as.character(netw[,i])) res[i] <- substring(as.character(netw[,i]), wh, wh + attr(wh,'match.length')-1) } problem is for author "van den hoofs j" who is only retrieved as 'van' thanks, David Biau >________________________________ > De : arun <smartpink...@yahoo.com> >À : Biau David <djmb...@yahoo.fr> >Envoyé le : Dimanche 13 janvier 2013 17h38 >Objet : Re: [R] extracting character values > >HI, > > > res <- data.frame(matrix(NA, nrow=dim(netw)[1], ncol=dim(netw)[2])) >#Error in matrix(NA, nrow = dim(netw)[1], ncol = dim(netw)[2]) : > # object 'netw' not found >Can you provide an example dataset of netw? >Thanks. >A.K. > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Biau David <djmb...@yahoo.fr> >To: r help list <r-help@r-project.org> >Cc: >Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 3:53 AM >Subject: [R] extracting character values > >Dear all, > >I have a dataframe of names (netw), with each cell including last name and >initials of an author; some cells have NA. I would like to extract only the >last name from each cell; this new dataframe is calle 'res' > > >Here is what I do: > >res <- data.frame(matrix(NA, nrow=dim(netw)[1], ncol=dim(netw)[2])) > >for (i in 1:x) >{ >wh <- regexpr('[a-z]{3,}', as.character(netw[,i])) >res[i] <- substring(as.character(netw[,i]), wh, wh + attr(wh,'match.length')-1) >} > > >the problem is that I cannot manage to extract 'complex' names properly such >as ' van der hoops bf ': here I only get 'van', the real last name is 'van der hoops' and 'bf' are the initials. Basically the last name has always a minimum of 3 consecutive letters, but may have 3 or more letters separated by one or more space; the cell may start by a space too; initials never have more than 2 letters. > >Someone would have a nice idea for that? Thanks, > > >David > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > >______________________________________________ >R-help@r-project.org mailing list >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. > > > > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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.