Using gsub or sub function to only get part of a string?
Following may help you here too.
sub("([^:]*):([^:]*).*","\\1:\\2",df$dat)
Output will be as follows.
> sub("([^:]*):([^:]*).*","\\1:\\2",df$dat)
[1] "WBU-ARGU*06:03" "WBU-ARDU*08:01" "WBU-ARFU*11:03" "WBU-ARFU*03:456b"
Where Input for data frame is as follows.
dat <- c("WBU-ARGU*06:03:04","WBU-ARDU*08:01:01","WBU-ARFU*11:03:05","WBU-ARFU*03:456b")
df <- data.frame(dat)
Explanation: Following is only for explanation purposes.
sub(" ##using sub for global subtitution function of R here.
([^:]*) ##By mentioning () we are keeping the matched values from vector's element into 1st place of memory(which we could use later), which is till next colon comes it will match everything.
: ##Mentioning letter colon(:) here.
([^:]*) ##By mentioning () making 2nd place in memory for matched values in vector's values which is till next colon comes it will match everything.
.*" ##Mentioning .* to match everything else now after 2nd colon comes in value.
,"\\1:\\2" ##Now mentioning the values of memory holds with whom we want to substitute the element values \\1 means 1st memory place \\2 is second memory place's value.
,df$dat) ##Mentioning df$dat dataframe's dat value.
You may use
df$col <- sub("(\\d:\\d+):\\d+$", "\\1", df$col)
See the regex demo
Details
(\\d:\\d+)
- Capturing group 1 (its value will be accessible via\1
in the replacement pattern): a digit, a colon and 1+ digits.:
- a colon\\d+
- 1+ digits$
- end of string.
R Demo:
col <- c("WBU-ARGU*06:03:04","WBU-ARDU*08:01:01","WBU-ARFU*11:03:05","WBU-ARFU*03:456")
sub("(\\d:\\d+):\\d+$", "\\1", col)
## => [1] "WBU-ARGU*06:03" "WBU-ARDU*08:01" "WBU-ARFU*11:03" "WBU-ARFU*03:456"
Alternative approach:
df$col <- sub("^(.*?:\\d+).*", "\\1", df$col)
See the regex demo
Here,
^
- start of string(.*?:\\d+)
- Group 1: any 0+ chars, as few as possible (due to the lazy*?
quantifier), then:
and 1+ digits.*
- the rest of the string.
However, it should be used with the PCRE regex engine, pass perl=TRUE
:
col <- c("WBU-ARGU*06:03:04","WBU-ARDU*08:01:01","WBU-ARFU*11:03:05","WBU-ARFU*03:456")
sub("^(.*?:\\d+).*", "\\1", col, perl=TRUE)
## => [1] "WBU-ARGU*06:03" "WBU-ARDU*08:01" "WBU-ARFU*11:03" "WBU-ARFU*03:456"
See the R online demo.