How to replace only characters located between numbers and leave unchanged those with different locations

user_8916031 0
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How to replace "." that is located within numbers with ",", but not replace "." located elsewhere?

Input data:

x_input="23.344,) abcd, 12899.2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."

Expected ouput:

x_output
"23,344,) abcd, 12899,2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."

I tried:

x_input<-"23.344,) abcd, 12899.2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."
x_output<-gsub(".", ",", x_input))))

But this does not work.

Thanks in advance.

stringi gsub r regex string
2 Answers

Replace a digit, dot and digit with the first digit, a comma and the second digit.

(Alternately use the pattern

r"{(\d)\.(\d?)}"

if it is sufficient to have a digit before the dot but not after the dot.)

No packages are used.

gsub(r"{(\d)\.(\d)}", r"{\1,\2}", x_input)
## [1] "23,344,) abcd, 12899,2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."
user_5165480

A possible solution, based on stringr::str_replace_all:

library(tidyverse)

x_input="23.344,) abcd, 12899.2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."

x_input %>% 
  str_replace_all("(?<=\\d)\\.(?=\\d)", ",")

#> [1] "23,344,) abcd, 12899,2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."

Or, in base R,

gsub("(?<=\\d)\\.(?=\\d)", ",", x_input, perl = T)

#> [1] "23,344,) abcd, 12899,2, (,  efg; abef. gfdc."
user_115644870
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