Search and format the string

Question

Here is my data at below,

So in my activity description column I have many charges.

Some string contain pattern like charge, charges, or nothing.

So at first, 1. I need to find for pattern named charge and replace with charges.

2. But for 2 of the charges named container charges and store charges I need to name as charge instead of charges. Ex. Container charge not container charges.

3. If no pattern named charge is present I need to place charges at end of the string.

For Ques 1, I tried below code in R,

    df$Activity description = gsub("*charge","charges",df$Activity description)

But it replacing additional s in the output as Ex. Chargess. I dont know why.

For ques 2 and 3, I dont know how to start.

Can anyone help me on this.

Answer 1

First, I highly recommend you use headers without spaces (ex. Activity_description).

Next, you probably want to use a series of if-else statements:

new_column <- c()
for (line in df$Activity_description){
    # check for the two specific cases
    if (line == "Container Tracking Charges"){
        new_column <- c(new_column, "Container Tracking Charge")
    } else if (line == "Store Tracking Charges"){
        new_column <- c(new_column, "Store Tracking Charge")
    } else if (grepl("Charge$", line)){
        new_column <- c(new_column, paste(line,"s",sep=""))
    } else if (! grepl("Charge", line)){
        new_column <- c(new_column, paste(line,"Charges"))
    } else {
        new_column <- c(new_column, line)
    }
}

You may then set the original column using the new character vector:

df$Activity_description <- new_column

This may be a bit simple since it's done in base R, but it should at least get you started.