speed issue: gsub on large data frame

Hi R?lers,

I?m running into speeding issues, performing a bunch of 

?gsub(patternvector, [token],dataframe$text_column)"

on a data frame containing >4millionentries.

(The ?patternvectors? contain up to 500 elements) 

Is there any better/faster way than performing like 20 gsub commands in a row?


Thanks!
Simon