R: Remove leading and trailing spaces from character strings

trim {gdata} | R Documentation

## Remove leading and trailing spaces from character strings

### Description

Remove leading and trailing spaces from character strings and other related objects.

### Usage

    trim(s, recode.factor=TRUE, ...)

### Arguments

`s` | object to be processed
`recode.factor` | should levels of a factor be recoded, see below
`...` | arguments passed to other methods, currently only to `reorder.factor` for factors

### Details

`trim` is a generic function, where default method does nothing, while method for character `s` trims its elements and method for factor `s` trims `levels`. There are also methods for `list` and `data.frame`.

Trimming character strings can change the sort order in some locales. For factors, this can affect the coding of levels. By default, factor levels are recoded to match the trimmed sort order, but this can be disabled by setting `recode.factor=FALSE`. Recoding is done with `reorder.factor`.

### Value

`s` with all leading and trailing spaces removed in its elements.

### Author(s)

Gregory R. Warnes greg@warnes.net with contributions by Gregor Gorjanc

### See Also

`trimws`, `sub`,`gsub` as well as argument `strip.white` in `read.table` and `reorder.factor`

### Examples

    s <- "    this is an example string    "
    trim(s)

    f <- factor(c(s, s, " A", " B ", "  C ", "D "))
    levels(f)

    trim(f)
    levels(trim(f))

    trim(f, recode.factor=FALSE)
    levels(trim(f, recode.factor=FALSE))

    l <- list(s=rep(s, times=6), f=f, i=1:6)
    trim(l)

    df <- as.data.frame(l)
    trim(df)

[Package gdata version 2.18.0 Index]