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Replace Specific Characters in String in R

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In this article, we will discuss how to replace specific characters in a string in R Programming Language.

Method 1: Using gsub() function

We can replace all occurrences of a particular character using gsub() function.

Syntax: gsub(character,new_character, string) 

Parameters:

  • string is the input string
  • character is the character present in the string to be replaced
  • new_character is the new character to be placed in the place in the existing character

Example: R program to replace character in a string using gsub() function

R




# consider a string "Hello Geek"
# replace the character 'e' in  "Hello 
# Geek" with "E"
print(gsub("e", "E", "Hello Geek") )
  
# consider a string "Python and java"
# replace the character 'a' in  "Python 
# and java" with "M"
print(gsub("a", "M", "Python and java") )


Output:

[1] "HEllo GEEk"
[1] "Python Mnd jMvM"

Method 2: Using sub() function

We can replace only the first occurrence of a particular character using sub() function, it will replace only the first occurrence character in the string

Syntax: sub(character,new_character, string)

Parameters:

  • string is the input string
  • character is the character present in the string to be replaced
  • new_character is the new character to be placed in the place in the existing character

Example: R program to replace character in a string using sub() function

R




# consider a string "Hello Geek"
# replace the character 'e' in  "Hello Geek" 
# with "E"
print(sub("e", "E", "Hello Geek") )
  
# consider a string "Python and java"
# replace the character 'a' in  "Python and java"
# with "M"
print(sub("a", "M", "Python and java") )


Output:

[1] "HEllo Geek"
[1] "Python Mnd java"

Method 3: Using str_replace_all() function

str_replace_all() is also a function that replaces the character with a particular character in a string. It will replace all occurrences of the character. It is available in stringr package. So, we need to install and load the package

install: install.packages("stringr")
load: library("stringr")  

Syntax: str_replace_all(string, “character”, “new_character”)

Parameters:

  • string is the input string
  • character is the character present in the string to be replaced
  • new_character is the new character to be placed in the place in the existing character

Example: R program to replace character in a string using str_replace_all() function

R




# load the stringr package
library("stringr")
  
# consider a string "Hello Geek"
# replace the character 'e' in  "Hello Geek" 
# with "E"
print(str_replace_all( "Hello Geek","e", "E") )
  
# consider a string "Python and java"
# replace the character 'a' in  "Python and java"
# with "M"
print(str_replace_all("Python and java","a", "M") )


Output:

[1] "HEllo GEEk"
[1] "Python Mnd jMvM"

Method 4: Using str_replace() function

str_replace() is also a function that replaces the character with a particular character in a string. It will replace only the first occurrence.

Syntax: str_replace(string, “character”, “new_character”)

Parameters:

  • string is the input string
  • character is the character present in the string to be replaced
  • new_character is the new character to be placed in the place in the existing character

Example: R program to replace character in a string using str_replace() function

R




# load the stringr package
library("stringr")
  
# consider a string "Hello Geek"
# replace the character 'e' in  "Hello Geek" 
# with "E"
print(str_replace( "Hello Geek","e", "E") )
  
# consider a string "Python and java"
# replace the character 'a' in  "Python and java"
# with "M"
print(str_replace("Python and java","a", "M") )


Output:

[1] "HEllo Geek"
[1] "Python Mnd java"


Last Updated : 23 Sep, 2021
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