Replace characters in the middle of a string

Question

I have the following df

df <- data.frame(name.name1 = c(1, 1, 1),
                 name.name2 = c(2, 2, 2),
                 name.name3 = c(3, 3, 3))

I'm trying to substitute . by space. When I do

colnames(df) <- gsub("^.$", " ", colnames(df))

What's happening here and how can I proceed?

Answer 1

You need to escape the dot with double back slash like so

colnames(df) <- gsub("\\.", " ", colnames(df))

Output:

"name name1" "name name2" "name name3"