String Abbreviation

Abbreviate a character vector. The function includes starting from the first character as many characters as there are needed to result in a vector of unique values.

StrAbbr(x, minchar = 1, method = c("left", "fix"))

Arguments

x

character vector to be abbreviated

minchar

integer, minimal number of characters for the abbreviations.

method

one out of left or fix. While left restricts the result to as many characters are needed to ensure uniqueness, does fix yield a vector with all the elements being as long, as the the longest needed substring for differentiating the terms.

Value

The abbreviated strings.

Author

Andri Signorell <andri@signorell.net>

See also

abbreviate, StrTrunc, StrTrim

Examples

StrAbbr(x=levels(d.pizza$driver), minchar=2)
#> [1] "Bu"   "Carp" "Cart" "Fa"   "Hu"   "Mi"   "Ta"  
StrAbbr(x=levels(d.pizza$driver), minchar=2, method="left")
#> [1] "Bu"   "Carp" "Cart" "Fa"   "Hu"   "Mi"   "Ta"  
StrAbbr(x=levels(d.pizza$driver), minchar=2, method="fix")
#> [1] "Butc" "Carp" "Cart" "Farm" "Hunt" "Mill" "Tayl"


x <- c("Aaron", "Aaramis", "Berta", "Bello", "Claudia", "Cardinale", "Doretta", "Emilia")
StrAbbr(x, minchar=2, method="left")
#> [1] "Aaro" "Aara" "Ber"  "Bel"  "Cl"   "Ca"   "Do"   "Em"  
StrAbbr(x, minchar=2, method="fix")
#> [1] "Aaro" "Aara" "Bert" "Bell" "Clau" "Card" "Dore" "Emil"