try this: > x <- ' middle of the string ' > sub("^[[:space:]]*(.*?)[[:space:]]*$", "\\1", x, perl=TRUE) [1] "middle of the string"
On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Bos, Roger <roger....@rothschild.com> wrote: > I have a character string and I would like to remove the leading and > tailing white spaces. The example for 'sub' shows how to remove the > trailing white spaces, but I still can't figure out how to remove both > trailing and leading white spaces because I can't find any documentation > for what "+$" means or what "\\s+$" means. Maybe its because I don't > have a Unix background. Thanks in advance for any help with this. > > str <- ' Now is the time ' > sub(' +$', '', str) ## spaces only > sub('[[:space:]]+$', '', str) ## white space, POSIX-style > sub('\\s+$', '', str, perl = TRUE) ## Perl-style white space > > Thanks, > > Roger > *************************************************************** > > This message is for the named person's use only. It may\...{{dropped:23}} > > ______________________________________________ > 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. > -- Jim Holtman Cincinnati, OH +1 513 646 9390 What is the problem that you are trying to solve? ______________________________________________ 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.