replacing a term in vector using str_replace_all function R

Question

I am trying to replace the hyphen - in a vector with a period ..

> samples_149_vector 
$Patient.ID
  [1] MB-0020 MB-0100 MB-0115 MB-0158 MB-0164 MB-0174 MB-0179 MB-0206
  [9] MB-0214 MB-0238 MB-0259 MB-0269 MB-0278 MB-0333 MB-0347 MB-0352
 [17] MB-0372 MB-0396 MB-0399 MB-0400 MB-0401 MB-0420 MB-0424 MB-0446
 [25] MB-0464 MB-0476 MB-0481 MB-0489 MB-0494 MB-0495 MB-0500 MB-0502

The following code

library(stringr)
str_replace_all(samples_149_vector, "-", ".")

generates the following error:

> str_replace_all(samples_149_vector, "-", ".")
[1] "1:149"                                                           
[2] "function (length = 0) \n.Internal(vector(\"character\", length))"
Warning message:
In stri_replace_all_regex(string, pattern, fix_replacement(replacement),  :
  argument is not an atomic vector; coercing

Any ideas? I have tried so many things and combinations but the coercing atomic vector message seems to reoccur

You need to `escape` ie `\\.` or use character classes although I can't reproduce. Could you add data with `dput`? — NelsonGon, May 20 '20 at 13:24
@NelsonGon, could you perhaps clarify this with reference to my code? Thanks in advance. — OJH, May 20 '20 at 13:34
You can add data to your question with `dput(df)` so we're working with the same data. Please edit to add data in that format — NelsonGon, May 20 '20 at 13:36

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 20 '20 at 13:40

0

Can you try utilizing an escape since "." is used to match any character when matching patterns with regular expressions? To create the regular expression, you need to use "\\."

str_replace_all(samples_149_vector, "-", "\\.")

answered May 20 '20 at 13:40

Eric

2,699
5
17

Replacements are taken literally--unless you're using capturing groups you don't need to escape special characters, e.g., `stringr::str_replace_all("a---s-s-s-a", "-", ".")` works fine. (Matching `.` in the `pattern`, of course, would require escaping as you've shown.) Which means the problem is probably OP's input data structure. – Gregor Thomas May 20 '20 at 13:44

replacing a term in vector using str_replace_all function R

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