String Handling and Text Processing in R

Work with strings—concatenate, measure length, search, extract, replace, compare, and convert factors. Practical text tasks for everyday R programming.

R Program to Replace Characters in a String

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Replaces matching characters using gsub.

[1] "hexxo"

R "Hello World" Program

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Prints a greeting using base R.

[1] "Hello, World!"

R Program to Take Input From User

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Reads a value from console using readline and prints it.

Enter your name: Alice
You entered: Alice

R Program to Concatenate Two Strings

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Concatenates strings using paste0.

[1] "Hello World"

R Program to Find the Length of a String

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Returns character count using nchar.

[1] 10

R Program to Check if Characters are Present in a String

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Checks presence using grepl.

[1] TRUE

R Program to Extract n Characters From a String

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Extracts a substring using substr.

[1] "Program"

R Program to Compare two Strings

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Compares strings lexically ignoring case.

[1] TRUE

R Program to Convert Factors to Characters

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Converts a factor vector to character.

[1] "a" "b" "a"

R Program to Extract Columns From a Dataframe

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Selects specific columns.

  name
1  Ann
2  Bob

R Program to Concatenate a Vector of Strings

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Concatenates using paste with collapse.

[1] "a,b,c"

R Program to Trim Leading and Trailing Whitespaces

Program (R)
Example & Expected Output

Trims spaces using trimws.

[1] "Hello World"

Frequently Asked Questions

Install R (from CRAN). Save the code in a file like main.R, then run Rscript main.R from your terminal. Alternatively, use an IDE such as RStudio.

No. All examples rely on base R functions to ensure compatibility across systems. Where packages are useful, they’ll be explicitly mentioned.

Yes. Copy the code, tweak inputs, and observe outputs. Experimentation is the fastest way to build intuition and mastery.

Yes. R is cross-platform. The examples run on Windows, macOS, and Linux with a standard R installation.

Learn R the Practical Way

R is a powerful language for data analysis, visualization, and statistical computing. Practicing small, focused programs builds fluency with vectors, data frames, lists, functions, control flow, and string manipulation.

On this page, you’ll find clean, well-formatted examples that run across platforms. Each example includes a short description and expected output so you can quickly verify your understanding. Explore the topics via the sidebar and extend the code to experiment further.

Whether you’re preparing for coursework, handling data tasks at work, or learning R for research, these examples offer a practical path to mastery. Bookmark the page and revisit to keep sharpening your skills.