How to Use str_remove in R (With Examples)

The str_remove() function from the stringr package in R can be used to remove matched patterns from a string.

This function uses the following syntax:

str_remove(string, pattern)

where:

string: Character vector
pattern: Pattern to look for

The following examples show how to use this function in practice

Example 1: Use str_remove with Vector

The following code shows how to use the str_remove() function to remove the first occurrence of the pattern “e” in a vector:

library(stringr)

#create character vector
my_vector <- "Hey there everyone."

#remove first occurrence of "e" from vector
str_remove(my_vector, "e")

[1] "Hy there everyone."

Notice that the first “e” has been removed from the vector, but all other “e” occurrences have remained.

To remove each occurrence of “e”, you can instead use the str_remove_all() function:

library(stringr)

#create character vector
my_vector <- "Hey there everyone."

#remove all occurrences of "e" from vector
str_remove_all(my_vector, "e")

[1] "Hy thr vryon."

Notice that every occurrence of “e” has bee removed from the string this time.

Example 2: Use str_remove with Data Frame

The following code shows how to use the str_remove() function to remove the pattern “avs” from every string in a particular column of a data frame:

library(stringr)

#create data frame
df <- data.frame(team=c('Mavs', 'Cavs', 'Heat', 'Hawks'),
                 points=c(99, 94, 105, 122))

#view data frame
df

   team points
1  Mavs     99
2  Cavs     94
3  Heat    105
4 Hawks    122

#remove every occurrence of "avs" in the team column
df$team <- str_remove(df$team, "avs")

#view updated data frame
df

   team points
1     M     99
2     C     94
3  Heat    105
4 Hawks    122

Notice that the pattern “avs” has been removed from the first two team names.