stringr
Simple, Consistent Wrappers for Common String Operations
A consistent, simple and easy to use set of wrappers around the fantastic 'stringi' package. All function and argument names (and positions) are consistent, all functions deal with "NA"'s and zero length vectors in the same way, and the output from one function is easy to feed into the input of another.
Overview
Strings are not glamorous, high-profile components of R, but they do play a big role in many data cleaning and preparation tasks. The stringr package provide a cohesive set of functions designed to make working with strings as easy as possible. If you’re not familiar with strings, the best place to start is the chapter on strings in R for Data Science.
stringr is built on top of stringi, which uses the ICU C library to provide fast, correct implementations of common string manipulations. stringr focusses on the most important and commonly used string manipulation functions whereas stringi provides a comprehensive set covering almost anything you can imagine. If you find that stringr is missing a function that you need, try looking in stringi. Both packages share similar conventions, so once you’ve mastered stringr, you should find stringi similarly easy to use.
Installation
# Install the released version from CRAN:install.packages("stringr")# Install the cutting edge development version from GitHub:# install.packages("devtools")devtools::install_github("tidyverse/stringr")
Cheatsheet
Usage
All functions in stringr start with str_ and take a vector of strings
as the first argument.
x <- c("why", "video", "cross", "extra", "deal", "authority")str_length(x)#> [1] 3 5 5 5 4 9str_c(x, collapse = ", ")#> [1] "why, video, cross, extra, deal, authority"str_sub(x, 1, 2)#> [1] "wh" "vi" "cr" "ex" "de" "au"
Most string functions work with regular expressions, a concise language
for describing patterns of text. For example, the regular expression
"[aeiou]" matches any single character that is a vowel:
str_subset(x, "[aeiou]")#> [1] "video" "cross" "extra" "deal" "authority"str_count(x, "[aeiou]")#> [1] 0 3 1 2 2 4
There are seven main verbs that work with patterns:
-
str_detect(x, pattern)tells you if there’s any match to the pattern.str_detect(x, "[aeiou]")#> [1] FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE -
str_count(x, pattern)counts the number of patterns.str_count(x, "[aeiou]")#> [1] 0 3 1 2 2 4 -
str_subset(x, pattern)extracts the matching components.str_subset(x, "[aeiou]")#> [1] "video" "cross" "extra" "deal" "authority" -
str_locate(x, pattern)gives the position of the match.str_locate(x, "[aeiou]")#> start end#> [1,] NA NA#> [2,] 2 2#> [3,] 3 3#> [4,] 1 1#> [5,] 2 2#> [6,] 1 1 -
str_extract(x, pattern)extracts the text of the match.str_extract(x, "[aeiou]")#> [1] NA "i" "o" "e" "e" "a" -
str_match(x, pattern)extracts parts of the match defined by parentheses.# extract the characters on either side of the vowelstr_match(x, "(.)[aeiou](.)")#> [,1] [,2] [,3]#> [1,] NA NA NA#> [2,] "vid" "v" "d"#> [3,] "ros" "r" "s"#> [4,] NA NA NA#> [5,] "dea" "d" "a"#> [6,] "aut" "a" "t" -
str_replace(x, pattern, replacement)replaces the matches with new text.str_replace(x, "[aeiou]", "?")#> [1] "why" "v?deo" "cr?ss" "?xtra" "d?al" "?uthority" -
str_split(x, pattern)splits up a string into multiple pieces.str_split(c("a,b", "c,d,e"), ",")#> [[1]]#> [1] "a" "b"#>#> [[2]]#> [1] "c" "d" "e"
As well as regular expressions (the default), there are three other pattern matching engines:
fixed(): match exact bytescoll(): match human lettersboundary(): match boundaries
RStudio Addin
The RegExplain RStudio addin provides a friendly interface for working with regular expressions and functions from stringr. This addin allows you to interactively build your regexp, check the output of common string matching functions, consult the interactive help pages, or use the included resources to learn regular expressions.
This addin can easily be installed with devtools:
# install.packages("devtools")devtools::install_github("gadenbuie/regexplain")
Compared to base R
R provides a solid set of string operations, but because they have grown organically over time, they can be inconsistent and a little hard to learn. Additionally, they lag behind the string operations in other programming languages, so that some things that are easy to do in languages like Ruby or Python are rather hard to do in R.
-
Uses consistent function and argument names. The first argument is always the vector of strings to modify, which makes stringr work particularly well in conjunction with the pipe:
letters %>%.[1:10] %>%str_pad(3, "right") %>%str_c(letters[2:11])#> [1] "a b" "b c" "c d" "d e" "e f" "f g" "g h" "h i" "i j" "j k" -
Simplifies string operations by eliminating options that you don’t need 95% of the time.
-
Produces outputs than can easily be used as inputs. This includes ensuring that missing inputs result in missing outputs, and zero length inputs result in zero length outputs.
News
stringr 1.4.0
-
str_interp()now renders lists consistently independent on the presence of additional placeholders (@amhrasmussen). -
New
str_starts()andstr_ends()functions to detect patterns at the beginning or end of strings (@jonthegeek, #258). -
str_subset(),str_detect(), andstr_which()getnegateargument, which is useful when you want the elements that do NOT match (#259, @yutannihilation). -
New
str_to_sentence()function to capitalize with sentence case (@jonthegeek, #202).
stringr 1.3.1
-
str_replace_all()with a named vector now respects modifier functions (#207) -
str_trunc()is once again vectorised correctly (#203, @austin3dickey). -
str_view()handlesNAvalues more gracefully (#217). I've also tweaked the sizing policy so hopefully it should work better in notebooks, while preserving the existing behaviour in knit documents (#232).
stringr 1.3.0
API changes
- During package build, you may see
Error : object ‘ignore.case’ is not exported by 'namespace:stringr'. This is because the long deprecatedstr_join(),ignore.case()andperl()have now been removed.
New features
-
str_glue()andstr_glue_data()provide convenient wrappers aroundglueandglue_data()from the glue package (#157). -
str_flatten()is a wrapper aroundstri_flatten()and clearly conveys flattening a character vector into a single string (#186). -
str_remove()andstr_remove_all()functions. These wrapstr_replace()andstr_replace_all()to remove patterns from strings. (@Shians, #178) -
str_squish()removes spaces from both the left and right side of strings, and also converts multiple space (or space-like characters) to a single space within strings (@stephlocke, #197). -
str_sub()gainsomit_naargument for ignoringNA. Accordingly,str_replace()now ignoresNAs and keeps the original strings. (@yutannihilation, #164)
Bug fixes and minor improvements
-
str_trunc()now preserves NAs (@ClaytonJY, #162) -
str_trunc()now throws an error whenwidthis shorter thanellipsis(@ClaytonJY, #163). -
Long deprecated
str_join(),ignore.case()andperl()have now been removed.
stringr 1.2.0
API changes
str_match_all()now returns NA if an optional group doesn't match (previously it returned ""). This is more consistent withstr_match()and other match failures (#134).
New features
-
In
str_replace(),replacementcan now be a function that is called once for each match and whose return value is used to replace the match. -
New
str_which()mimicsgrep()(#129). -
A new vignette (
vignette("regular-expressions")) describes the details of the regular expressions supported by stringr. The main vignette (vignette("stringr")) has been updated to give a high-level overview of the package.
Minor improvements and bug fixes
-
str_order()andstr_sort()gain explicitnumericargument for sorting mixed numbers and strings. -
str_replace_all()now throws an error ifreplacementis not a character vector. IfreplacementisNA_character_it replaces the complete string with replaces withNA(#124). -
All functions that take a locale (e.g.
str_to_lower()andstr_sort()) default to "en" (English) to ensure that the default is consistent across platforms.
stringr 1.1.0
-
Add sample datasets:
fruit,wordsandsentences. -
fixed(),regex(), andcoll()now throw an error if you use them with anything other than a plain string (#60). I've clarified that the replacement forperl()isregex()notregexp()(#61).boundary()has improved defaults when splitting on non-word boundaries (#58, @lmullen). -
str_detect()now can detect boundaries (by checking for astr_count()> 0) (#120).str_subset()works similarly. -
str_extract()andstr_extract_all()now work withboundary(). This is particularly useful if you want to extract logical constructs like words or sentences.str_extract_all()respects thesimplifyargument when used withfixed()matches. -
str_subset()now respects custom options forfixed()patterns (#79, @gagolews). -
str_replace()andstr_replace_all()now behave correctly when a replacement string contains$s,\\\\1, etc. (#83, #99). -
str_split()gains asimplifyargument to matchstr_extract_all()etc. -
str_view()andstr_view_all()create HTML widgets that display regular expression matches (#96). -
word()returnsNAfor indexes greater than number of words (#112).
stringr 1.0.0
-
stringr is now powered by stringi instead of base R regular expressions. This improves unicode and support, and makes most operations considerably faster. If you find stringr inadequate for your string processing needs, I highly recommend looking at stringi in more detail.
-
stringr gains a vignette, currently a straight forward update of the article that appeared in the R Journal.
-
str_c()now returns a zero length vector if any of its inputs are zero length vectors. This is consistent with all other functions, and standard R recycling rules. Similarly, usingstr_c("x", NA)now yieldsNA. If you want"xNA", usestr_replace_na()on the inputs. -
str_replace_all()gains a convenient syntax for applying multiple pairs of pattern and replacement to the same vector:input <- c("abc", "def")str_replace_all(input, c("[ad]" = "!", "[cf]" = "?")) -
str_match()now returns NA if an optional group doesn't match (previously it returned ""). This is more consistent withstr_extract()and other match failures. -
New
str_subset()keeps values that match a pattern. It's a convenient wrapper forx[str_detect(x)](#21, @jiho). -
New
str_order()andstr_sort()allow you to sort and order strings in a specified locale. -
New
str_conv()to convert strings from specified encoding to UTF-8. -
New modifier
boundary()allows you to count, locate and split by character, word, line and sentence boundaries. -
The documentation got a lot of love, and very similar functions (e.g. first and all variants) are now documented together. This should hopefully make it easier to locate the function you need.
-
ignore.case(x)has been deprecated in favour offixed|regex|coll(x, ignore.case = TRUE),perl(x)has been deprecated in favour ofregex(x). -
str_join()is deprecated, please usestr_c()instead.
stringr 0.6.2
-
fixed path in
str_wrapexample so works for more R installations. -
remove dependency on plyr
stringr 0.6.1
-
Zero input to
str_split_fixedreturns 0 row matrix withncolumns -
Export
str_join
stringr 0.6
-
new modifier
perlthat switches to Perl regular expressions -
str_matchnow uses new base functionregmatchesto extract matches - this should hopefully be faster than my previous pure R algorithm
stringr 0.5
-
new
str_wrapfunction which givesstrwrapoutput in a more convenient format -
new
wordfunction extract words from a string given user defined separator (thanks to suggestion by David Cooper) -
str_locatenow returns consistent type when matching empty string (thanks to Stavros Macrakis) -
new
str_countcounts number of matches in a string. -
str_padandstr_trimreceive performance tweaks - for large vectors this should give at least a two order of magnitude speed up -
str_length returns NA for invalid multibyte strings
-
fix small bug in internal
recyclablefunction
stringr 0.4
- all functions now vectorised with respect to string, pattern (and where appropriate) replacement parameters
- fixed() function now tells stringr functions to use fixed matching, rather than escaping the regular expression. Should improve performance for large vectors.
- new ignore.case() modifier tells stringr functions to ignore case of pattern.
- str_replace renamed to str_replace_all and new str_replace function added. This makes str_replace consistent with all functions.
- new str_sub<- function (analogous to substring<-) for substring replacement
- str_sub now understands negative positions as a position from the end of the string. -1 replaces Inf as indicator for string end.
- str_pad side argument can be left, right, or both (instead of center)
- str_trim gains side argument to better match str_pad
- stringr now has a namespace and imports plyr (rather than requiring it)
stringr 0.3
- fixed() now also escapes |
- str_join() renamed to str_c()
- all functions more carefully check input and return informative error messages if not as expected.
- add invert_match() function to convert a matrix of location of matches to locations of non-matches
- add fixed() function to allow matching of fixed strings.
stringr 0.2
- str_length now returns correct results when used with factors
- str_sub now correctly replaces Inf in end argument with length of string
- new function str_split_fixed returns fixed number of splits in a character matrix
- str_split no longer uses strsplit to preserve trailing breaks