9.2 Matching Pattern with Regular Expressions

Regular expressions provide a powerful and flexible way to find and manipulate text based on patterns of characters. They are essential tools for various tasks in data analysis and programming, including:

Data cleaning: Standardizing formats of names, addresses, or phone numbers.
Validation: Ensuring user input adheres to expected patterns (e.g., email addresses).
Text extraction: Isolating keywords, dates, or other crucial information from documents.

This section introduces you to the fundamentals of regular expressions in R, using the stringr package.

library(stringr)

The stringr package provides a very useful function called str_view() to highlight the elements that match the given pattern. To create a logical vector that reflect this match, you can use the str_detect() function.

9.2.1 Basic Pattern Matching

We’ll utilize a sample character vector to illustrate these concepts.

sample_names <- c("apple_pie", "banana_bread", "cherry_pie", "chocolate_cake", "apple_crumble")

Let’s describe a few commonly used patterns.

a. matching literal strings

The simplest form of pattern matching involves searching for a specific sequence of characters. To find all variable names containing the exact string "pie", you can run the following.

str_view(sample_names, "pie")
#> [1] │ apple_<pie>
#> [3] │ cherry_<pie>

Here, the str_view() function highlights the variable names that contain the string "pie".

str_detect(sample_names, "pie")
#> [1]  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE

The str_detect() function returns a logical vector that reflects whether this is a match. In the rest of this section, we will be focusing on demonstration with str_view().

b. using wildcards

The period (.) acts as a wildcard, matching any single character. This allows for more flexible pattern definitions. For example, to find all variable names that contain the letter "c" followed by any character, you can use the pattern ".c".

str_view(sample_names, ".c")
#> [4] │ ch<oc>olate<_c>ake
#> [5] │ apple<_c>rumble
str_view(sample_names, "._pi.")
#> [1] │ appl<e_pie>
#> [3] │ cherr<y_pie>

The first pattern ".p" represents any character plus the letter c. Note that "cherry_pie" is not a match since it doesn’t have any character before the letter "c".

The second pattern "._pi." represents any character plus the string "_pi" plus any character.

c. including anchors

Anchors allow you to specify the position of a match within a string: - ^ matches the start of a string. - $ matches the end of a string.

For example, to find all variable names that start with the letter "c", you can use the pattern "^c".

str_view(sample_names, "^c")
#> [3] │ <c>herry_pie
#> [4] │ <c>hocolate_cake

Now, let’s find the strings the end with "pie".

str_view(sample_names, "pie$")
#> [1] │ apple_<pie>
#> [3] │ cherry_<pie>

9.2.2 Character Classes

a. matching single characters

Sometimes, we may want to match the characters with a specific class or a group of values instead of exact values. Here is a table of the commonly used classes.

Class	Description
\d	Matches any digit (0-9)
\s	Matches any whitespace character (space, tab, newline)
[xyz]	Matches any one of the characters within the brackets (x, y, or z)
[^xyz]	Matches any character except those within the brackets
[a-z] or [:lower:]	Matches any lowercase letter
[A-Z] or [:upper:]	Matches any uppercase letter

Let’s see some examples.

my_char <- c("abc", "a1", "2b", "33c", "d 2", "d f  3")
str_view(my_char, "\\d")  # Matches strings containing a digit
#> [2] │ a<1>
#> [3] │ <2>b
#> [4] │ <3><3>c
#> [5] │ d <2>
#> [6] │ d f  <3>
str_view(my_char, "\\s\\d")  # Matches a whitespace followed by a digit
#> [5] │ d< 2>
#> [6] │ d f < 3>
str_view(my_char, "[ac3]")  # Matches strings containing 'a', 'c', or '3'
#> [1] │ <a>b<c>
#> [2] │ <a>1
#> [4] │ <3><3><c>
#> [6] │ d f  <3>
str_view(my_char, "[^abc3]")  # Matches strings containing characters other than 'a', 'b', 'c', or '3'
#> [2] │ a<1>
#> [3] │ <2>b
#> [5] │ <d>< ><2>
#> [6] │ <d>< ><f>< >< >3

Here, \\d indicates that as long as the string contains a digit, it will be matched. As a result, "a1", "2b", and "33c" are matched. Note that you need to escape the backslash \ by using two backslashes \\ within R strings.

b. matching repeated characters

To match a character or group of characters multiple times in a row, you can use quantifiers:

Symbol	Description
{n}	Matches exactly n occurrences of the preceding element.
{n,}	Matches n or more occurrences.
{n,m}	Matches at least n and at most m occurrences.
?	Matches zero or one occurrence (equivalent to {0,1}).
+	Matches one or more occurrences (equivalent to {1,}).
*	Matches zero or more occurrences (equivalent to {0,}).

Let’s see some examples.

my_str_rep <- c("bbbb", "1234a", "bbb", "abcdef", "bb ee", "123456789")

str_view(my_str_rep, "b{3}")  # Matches consecutive three 'b's
#> [1] │ <bbb>b
#> [3] │ <bbb>

Here, "b{3}" indicates that the string should contain exactly three "b"s. As a result, "bbbb" and "bbb" are matched.

str_view(my_str_rep, "[1-9]{9}")  # Matches a 9-digit number
#> [6] │ <123456789>

Here, "[1-9]{9}" indicates that the string should contain exactly nine digits. As a result, "123456789" is matched.

str_view(my_str_rep, "[a-z]{4}")  # Matches four consecutive lowercase letters
#> [1] │ <bbbb>
#> [4] │ <abcd>ef

Here, "[a-z]{4}" indicates that the string should match exactly four consecutive lowercase letters. As a result, "bbbb" and "abcdef" are matched. Note that "bb ee" is not matched due to the space.

str_view(my_str_rep, "[a-z1-9]{4,}")  # Matches at least four consecutive lowercase letters or digits
#> [1] │ <bbbb>
#> [2] │ <1234a>
#> [4] │ <abcdef>
#> [6] │ <123456789>

Finally, "[a-z1-9]{4,}" indicates that the string should contain at least four consecutive lowercase letters or digits. As a result, "bbbb", 1234a”,“abcdef”, and“123456789”` are matched.

9.2.3 Combining Patterns with Logical Operators

You can combine multiple patterns using logical operators:

Symbol	Description
\|	Matches either the pattern on the left or the right (OR).
&	Requires both patterns to match (AND).
()	Groups patterns to control the scope of operators.

Let’s see some examples.

my_str_comb <- c("abc", "123", "abc123", "123abc", "abc123def")
str_view(my_str_comb, "abc|123")  # Matches either 'abc' or '123'
#> [1] │ <abc>
#> [2] │ <123>
#> [3] │ <abc><123>
#> [4] │ <123><abc>
#> [5] │ <abc><123>def

Here, "abc|123" indicates that the string should contain either "abc" or "123". As a result, "abc", "123", "abc123", "123abc", and "abc123def" are matched.

str_view(my_str_comb, "abc&123")  # Matches 'abc' followed by '123'

Here, "abc&123" indicates that the string should contain a substring that matches both "abc" and "123", which is impossible. As a result, no matches are found.

str_view(my_str_comb, "(abc|123)abc")
#> [4] │ <123abc>

Here, "(abc|123)abc" indicates that the string should contain either "abc" or "123" followed by "abc". As a result, "abc123" is matched.

str_view(my_str_comb, "abc|123abc")
#> [1] │ <abc>
#> [3] │ <abc>123
#> [4] │ <123abc>
#> [5] │ <abc>123def

Here, "abc|123abc" indicates that the string should contain either "abc" or "123abc". As a result, "abc", "abc123", and "abc123def" are matched.

Comparing the last two examples, the parentheses () are used to group the patterns to control the scope of the operators.

9.2.4 Conclusion

Regular expressions provide a powerful and flexible way to find and manipulate text based on patterns of characters. In this section, we introduced you to the fundamentals of regular expressions in R, using the stringr package. We demonstrated how to match literal strings, use wildcards, include anchors, character classes, and combine patterns with logical operators.

9.2.5 Exercises

Matching Literal Strings:

Create a character vector called fruits containing the following elements: "apple", "banana", "strawberry", "blueberry", "blackberry". Use str_view() to highlight the fruits containing the substring "an".

Using Wildcards

Using the fruits vector from Exercise 1, use a wildcard to find and highlight fruits that have any character followed by "e".

Including Anchors

Using the fruits vector, find and highlight fruits that ends with the string "berry".

Character Classes

Create a new character vector called codes with the elements: "A123", "B456", "Bb56", "C789", "D012", "e345". Use a regular expression to highlight the elements that contains an uppercase letter followed by a number.

Matching Repeated Characters

Create a vector named phone_numbers with these elements: "555-123-4567", "(555) 123 4567", "5551234567", "1-555-123-4567", "555.123.4567".

Find and highlight all phone numbers that contain exactly three digits followed by a hyphen, another three digits, a hyphen, and finally four digits (e.g., 555-123-4567).
Use str_view() to find all phone numbers that have parentheses around the first three digits (e.g., (555) 123 4567).

Email address checker

Now, you are asked to check whether a string is a valid .com email address according to the following rules

Format: username@domain.com
Username: The part before the "@" symbol. It is a string of length at least one that contains any combinations of letters (upper or lower cases), numbers, periods, and underscores.
Domain: It is a string of length at least one that contains any combination of letters and numbers.
.com: The domain should end with .com.

Use the str_detect() function with your pattern on the following strings:

emails <- c("user.name@domain.com", "user123@domain.com", "user_name@domain.com",
    "username@domaincom", "username@domain.net", "user@name@domain.com", "@icloud.com",
    "user@.com", "user@do_main.com")

Extracting Dates

Create a character vector called dates with the following elements: "2021-01-01", "12-31-2021", "2022-28-02", "2022-02-29", "2022-03-01". Use a regular expression to highlight the dates that are in the format YYYY-MM-DD.