str_sub R Function of stringr Package (2 Examples)
This R programming tutorial explains how to apply the str_sub function of the stringr package. First, let’s have a look at the basic R syntax and the definition of the str_sub function:
Basic R Syntax of str_sub:
str_sub(string = my_string, start = 3, end = 7)
Definition of str_sub:
The str_sub function extracts or replaces a substring from a character string.
This article will show you two examples for the usage of str_sub in R.
Let’s dive in!
Example 1: Extract Substring with str_sub
The first example shows how to extract a substring with the str_sub R function of the stringr package. Let’s first create an example character string in R:
x <- "example_xxx_string" # Create example string
Before applying stringr functions such as str_sub to our example data, we also need to install and load the stringr package:
install.packages("stringr") # Install stringr package library("stringr") # Load stringr package
Now we can extract a substring from our example data as follows:
str_sub(string = x, start = 8, end = 12) # Extract substring # "_xxx_"
As you can see based on the previous R code, we just had to specify:
- The string (i.e. x)
- The starting point (i.e. 8)
- The end point (i.e. 12)
Note that the start and end point are by default the first and last character of the input string. str_sub is therefore also useful, in case you want to truncate leading or trailing characters of a string. Further details can be found in the R help documentation of str_sub:
Figure 1: Usage of str_sub Explained in the R Help Documentation.
Example 2: Replace Substring with str_sub
The second example explains how to replace a substring with str_sub. We are again using our example string x, which we have created in Example 1.
We can now replace a substring of our example string with the following R code:
str_sub(string = x, start = 8, end = 12) <- " character " # Replace substring x # Print updated string # "example character string"
Note what we have changed compared to Example 1: We just added an assignment arrow and the replacement at the end of the str_sub command (i.e. <- " character ").
Tutorial Video & Further Resources of Dealing with Strings in R
If there are any questions left concerning the topic of this article, please check out the video below where I explain the content in detail:
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Handling characters in R can be a tricky task. For that reason, I have listed some further resources for the handling of character strings in the following. First, you might have a look at the following YouTube video of the channel expresstut01. In the video, the speaker is giving further examples for functions of the stringr package:
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Furthermore, I have already published several R tutorials on the handling of character strings on this website (including tutorials on other stringr functions):
- str_c Function of stringr Package
- sub & gsub R Functions
- Extract First or Last n Characters from String
- Replace Last Comma of Character String
- The R Programming Language
In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the str_sub function in R. However, in case you have any further questions on the usage of str_sub, just leave me a comment below!
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