Like Operator

The like operator is a simple wrapper for grep(..., value=TRUE), whose complexity is hard to crack for R-newbies.

x %like% pattern

x %like any% pattern

Arguments

x

a vector, typically of character or factor type

pattern

simple character string to be matched in the given character vector.

Details

Follows the logic of simple SQL or basic commands.

Value

a vector (numeric, character, factor), matching the mode of x

Author

Andri Signorell <andri@signorell.net>

See also

match, pmatch, grep, %[]%, %overlaps%

Examples

# find names ending on "or"
names(d.pizza) %like% "%or"
#>  [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
#> [13] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE

# find names starting with "d"
names(d.pizza) %like% "d%"
#>  [1] FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE
#> [13] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE

# ... containing er?
names(d.pizza) %like% "%er%"
#>  [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE
#> [13]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE

# and combined, search for a name containing "un", ending on "or"
# or beginning with "F"
levels(d.pizza$driver) %like any% c("%un%", "%or", "F%")
#> [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE

# the positions on the vector
match(names(d.pizza) %like% "%er%", names(d.pizza))
#>  [1] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA