How to merge two strings

Hi r-help,

A very simple question for which I have not been able to find an 
answer
in the docs:

How can I merge two character strings?

I am searching for the equivalent of the (non-existing) stringmerge
function illustrated below:

s1 <- "R-"
s2 <- "project"
stringmerge(s1,s2)

[1] "R-project"

Claus

-- 
Ph.D. Student Claus Hindsgaul
CHEC, Dept. Chemical Eng. (KT), DTU
and Biomass Gasification Group, Dept. Mechanical Eng. (MEK), DTU
DTU Building 229 room 154, Phone +45 4525 2838
http://bgg.mek.dtu.dk/ and http://www.kt.dtu.dk/

Hi r-help,

A very simple question for which I have not been able to find an answer
in the docs:

How can I merge two character strings?

I am searching for the equivalent of the (non-existing) stringmerge
function illustrated below:

s1 <- "R-"
s2 <- "project"
stringmerge(s1,s2)

[1] "R-project"

Hi r-help,

A very simple question for which I have not been able to find an answer
in the docs:

How can I merge two character strings?

I am searching for the equivalent of the (non-existing) stringmerge
function illustrated below:

 

s1 <- "R-"
s2 <- "project"
stringmerge(s1,s2)
   

[1] "R-project"
 


Claus

 

look at ?paste(), e.g.,

s1 <- "R-"
s2 <- "project"
paste(s1, s2, sep = "")


Best,
Dimitris

----
Dimitris Rizopoulos
Ph.D. Student
Biostatistical Centre
School of Public Health
Catholic University of Leuven

Address: Kapucijnenvoer 35, Leuven, Belgium
Tel: +32/16/336899
Fax: +32/16/337015
Web: http://www.med.kuleuven.be/biostat/
     http://www.student.kuleuven.be/~m0390867/dimitris.htm


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Claus Hindsgaul" <claush at mek.dtu.dk>
To: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 1:01 PM
Subject: [R] How to merge two strings

Hi r-help,

A very simple question for which I have not been able to find an 
answer
in the docs:

How can I merge two character strings?

I am searching for the equivalent of the (non-existing) stringmerge
function illustrated below:

s1 <- "R-"
s2 <- "project"
stringmerge(s1,s2)

[1] "R-project"

Claus

-- 
Ph.D. Student Claus Hindsgaul
CHEC, Dept. Chemical Eng. (KT), DTU
and Biomass Gasification Group, Dept. Mechanical Eng. (MEK), DTU
DTU Building 229 room 154, Phone +45 4525 2838
http://bgg.mek.dtu.dk/ and http://www.kt.dtu.dk/

Thank you all!
Paste() was just the function I needed to know!

Claus Hindsgaul wrote:

Thank you all!
Paste() was just the function I needed to know!

 Or sprintf:

 > s1 <- "R-"
 > s2 <- "project"
 > sprintf("%s%s",s1,s2)

 [1] "R-project"

 It seems to be much faster:

 > unix.time(for(i in 1:100000){junk=sprintf("%s%s",s1,s2)})

 [1] 1.12 0.00 1.12 0.00 0.00

 > unix.time(for(i in 1:100000){junk=paste(s1,s2,sep='')})

 [1] 5.90 0.01 5.92 0.00 0.00

 Not that I imagine string concatenation will ever be a bottleneck
worth optimising but there it is. A well-constructed sprintf() call may
be more readable than a pastey mess though, with all its fiddly commas
and quotes - contrived example:

 > sprintf("%s://%s%s/%s",scheme,host,dir,file)

 [1] "http://www.foo.com/foo/bar/baz.txt"

 > paste(scheme,'://',host,dir,'/',file,sep='')

 [1] "http://www.foo.com/foo/bar/baz.txt"

 which do you prefer?