Prev Next

R Strings

Strings in R are used to represent and manipulate text. They are enclosed in double quotes (") or single quotes ('). R provides several functions for string operations, such as concatenation, substring extraction, and more.

Key Topics

1. String Creation and Manipulation

Strings in R can be created using double or single quotes. The paste() and paste0() functions are used for concatenating strings, while substr() can extract substrings.

# Creating and manipulating strings
name <- "Rudra"
greeting <- "Hello, "
full_greeting <- paste(greeting, name, "!")  # Concatenate with space
substring <- substr(full_greeting, 1, 5)      # Extract substring
print(full_greeting)
print(substring)

Output:

[1] "Hello, Rudra !"
[1] "Hello"

Code Explanation: The paste() function concatenates greeting, name, and "!" with spaces. The substr() function extracts the substring from position 1 to 5, resulting in "Hello".

2. Escape Characters

Escape characters are used to represent special characters in strings. They start with a backslash (\) followed by a character. Common escape characters in R include:

Escape Character Description
\nNew line
\tTab space
\\Backslash
\"Double quote
\'Single quote
 
# Using escape characters
escaped_string <- "R says \"Hello\" to everyone!\nWelcome to R programming."
print(escaped_string)

Output:

[1] "R says "Hello" to everyone! Welcome to R programming."

Code Explanation: The string includes escape characters: \" to include double quotes within the string and \n to add a new line. When printed, these escape characters are interpreted accordingly, creating formatted text.

Key Takeaways

  • Strings in R can be enclosed in either single or double quotes.
  • The paste() and paste0() functions are used for concatenating strings.
  • Escape characters are used to represent special characters within strings.
Prev Next