Abbreviate Strings Uniquely

Creates abbreviations of character strings such that they remain distinguishable within the input vector.

Usage

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

Arguments

x

a character vector

minchar

integer; minimum number of characters to retain

method

character string specifying the abbreviation strategy:

• "left": abbreviate each string individually to the shortest unique prefix

• "fix": use a common prefix length for all strings such that they are distinguishable

Value

A character vector of abbreviated strings.

Details

The function ensures that abbreviations are unique (within the given vector) while respecting the minimum length minchar.

For method = "left", each string is shortened individually to the shortest prefix that distinguishes it from all others.

For method = "fix", a single prefix length is chosen such that all strings are distinguishable.

Unicode-aware substring operations are performed using the stringi package.

See also

stringi::stri_sub(), stringi::stri_length()

string-overview for an overview of all string utilities in pharos.

Examples

x <- c("apple", "apricot", "banana")

# individual minimal abbreviations
strAbbr(x, method = "left")
#> [1] "app" "apr" "b"  

# fixed length abbreviations
strAbbr(x, method = "fix")
#> [1] "app" "apr" "ban"