How to Extract Numeric Values from Vector of Character Strings in R (Example Code)
In this R programming tutorial you’ll learn how to return numeric values from a vector of character strings.
Creation of Example Data
my_string <- c("XXX555XXX111", "sdhgf1skjdfh2", "X3", "Z7") # Example character vector my_string # Returning character vector to console # "XXX555XXX111" "sdhgf1skjdfh2" "X3" "Z7" |
my_string <- c("XXX555XXX111", "sdhgf1skjdfh2", "X3", "Z7") # Example character vector my_string # Returning character vector to console # "XXX555XXX111" "sdhgf1skjdfh2" "X3" "Z7"
Example: Returning All Numeric Values from Character String
my_string_numbers <- regmatches(my_string, gregexpr("[[:digit:]]+", my_string)) # Using gregexpr & regmatches functions my_string_numbers # Returning list with numeric values # [[1]] # [1] "555" "111" # # [[2]] # [1] "1" "2" # # [[3]] # [1] "3" # # [[4]] # [1] "7" |
my_string_numbers <- regmatches(my_string, gregexpr("[[:digit:]]+", my_string)) # Using gregexpr & regmatches functions my_string_numbers # Returning list with numeric values # [[1]] # [1] "555" "111" # # [[2]] # [1] "1" "2" # # [[3]] # [1] "3" # # [[4]] # [1] "7"
as.numeric(unlist(my_string_numbers)) # Converting list with characters to numeric vector # 555 111 1 2 3 7 |
as.numeric(unlist(my_string_numbers)) # Converting list with characters to numeric vector # 555 111 1 2 3 7