Code Vectorization of gsub in R

Question

How can I vectorize this code in R?

data <- data.frame(A = rep(5, 5), B = rep(0, 5))
data$abstract <- c("no abstract available", "A", "A", "B", "no abstract available")

for (row in (1:nrow(data))){
  data [row,"abstract"] <- gsub("no abstract available"," ",data[row,"abstract"])
}

Answer 1

You have plenty of alternatives for this problem

• Using sapply

  data$abstract <- sapply(data$abstract, 
                          function(x){gsub(pattern = "no abstract available",
                          replacement = " ", x)})
  

• Using mapply

  data$abstract <- mapply(gsub, pattern = "no abstract available",
                          replacement = " ", data$abstract)
  

• Using the stringr package

  library(stringr)
  data$abstract <- str_replace(data$abstract, "no abstract available", 
                               " ")
  

Also, check this this question on StackOverflow for more information, like solutions with match and the qdap package.