Try replacing \d with \\d throughout your pattern. The R parser is trying to interpret the \ before the grep function ever sees it. By backslashing the backslashes, the parser ends up putting a single backslash in the pattern for grep to see.
Hope this helps, -- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. Statistical Data Center Intermountain Healthcare [EMAIL PROTECTED] (801) 408-8111 > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Shawn Way > Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 1:12 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [R] Extracting text from a character string > > I have a set of character strings like below: > > > data3[1] > [1] "CB01_0171_03-27-2002-(Sample 26609)-(126)" > > > > I am trying to extract the text 03-27-2002 and convert this > into a date for the same record. I keep looking at the grep > function, however I cannot quite get it to work. > > grep("\d\d-\d\d-\d\d\d\d",data3[1],perl=TRUE,value=TRUE) > > Any hints? > > Shawn Way > > > --------------------------------- > Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > [email protected] 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. > ______________________________________________ [email protected] 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.
