kutils (version 1.73)

alphaOnly: Keep only alpha-numeric symbols

Description

From a text string, keep ASCII letters, numbers, as well as "'", " ", "_" "(", ")", "-", and "+". For maximum compatability with the cross-platform file-naming standard. Obliterates all characters that migth be mistaken for shell symbols, like "^", "$", "@" and so forth.

Usage

alphaOnly(x, also)

Value

cleaned text string

Arguments

x

text string, or vector of strings (each of which is processed separately)

also

A named vector of other symbols that the user wants to remove, along with replacements. For example, c(" " = "_", "-" = "", "+" = "") to replace space with underscore and minus and plus signs with nothing.

Author

Paul Johnson <[e-mail]>

Details

Removes trailing spaces.

This version allows internal spaces in the string, by default. The also argument can be used to eliminate spaces or other hated symbols.

Examples

x <- c("[]kansas(city) Missouri", "percent%slash/",
       "\back{squiggle}_under(paren)", "*star-minus+plus")
alphaOnly(x)
alphaOnly(x, also = c(" " = "_", "+" = "_"))
alphaOnly(x, also = c("(" = "[", ")" = "]"))