Experimenting a bit further, I've "found" the following 1) the problem seems only gsub(), not sub()
> sub(" ", "", "b c + d | a * b", perl=TRUE) [1] "bc + d | a * b" > gsub(" ", "", "b c + d | a * b", perl=TRUE) NULL 2) only if perl = TRUE, not otherwise 3) Also modifying the replacement string only slightly leads to a different (correct instead of bug) result: > gsub(" ", "", "bc + d | a * b", perl=TRUE) [1] "bc+d|a*b" > gsub(" ", "", "b c + d | a *", perl=TRUE) [1] "bc+d|a*" > gsub(" ", "", "b c + d | b", perl=TRUE) [1] "bc+d|b" Whereas those give the bug as well : > gsub(" ", "", "b : : d : a : b", perl=TRUE) NULL > gsub(" ", "", "b : : : : a : b", perl=TRUE) NULL > gsub(" ", "", "b : : : : : : b", perl=TRUE) NULL > gsub(" ", "", "a : : : : : : a", perl=TRUE) NULL but not this > gsub(" ", "", "b : : : : : : a", perl=TRUE) [1] "b::::::a" But it's even worse : > gsub(" ", "", "a: 12345 :a", perl=TRUE) -> segmentation fault and from "R -d gdb" : > gsub(" ", "", "a: 12345 :a", perl=TRUE) Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. hashIndex (symbol=0x8fd0060, table=0x823f2b8) at ../../../R/src/main/envir.c:599 599 if( !HASHASH(c) ) { (gdb) bt #0 hashIndex (symbol=0x8fd0060, table=0x823f2b8) at ../../../R/src/main/envir.c:599 #1 0x080b145d in R_GetGlobalCache (symbol=0x1) at ../../../R/src/main/envir.c:656 #2 0x080b1ac1 in findGlobalVar (symbol=0x8fd0060) at ../../../R/src/main/envir.c:923 #3 0x080b8873 in Rf_eval (e=0x823f2b8, rho=0x823f014) at ../../../R/src/main/eval.c:329 #4 0x080b88c9 in Rf_eval (e=0x8fd1e60, rho=0x821e540) at ../../../R/src/main/eval.c:354 #5 0x080e1e0e in GetObject (cptr=0xbfffd400) at ../../../R/src/main/objects.c:88 #6 0x080e2a3b in do_usemethod (call=0x84eb084, op=0x823be78, args=0x84eb0a0, env=0x8fd1df0) at ../../../R/src/main/objects.c:381 #7 0x080b8c33 in Rf_eval (e=0x84eb084, rho=0x8fd1df0) at ../../../R/src/main/eval.c:375 #8 0x080b8f48 in Rf_applyClosure (call=0x8fd1eb4, op=0x84eafa4, arglist=0x8fd1e44, rho=0x823f014, suppliedenv=0x821e540) at ../../../R/src/main/eval.c:559 #9 0x080b89bf in Rf_eval (e=0x8fd1eb4, rho=0x823f014) at ../../../R/src/main/eval.c:410 #10 0x0811b0f3 in Rf_PrintValueEnv (s=0x8fd1eb4, env=0x823f014) at ../../../R/src/main/print.c:775 #11 0x080d55f1 in Rf_ReplIteration (rho=0x823f014, savestack=150798432, browselevel=1, state=0x823f014) at ../../../R/src/main/main.c:254 #12 0x080d578d in R_ReplConsole (rho=0x823f014, savestack=0, browselevel=0) at ../../../R/src/main/main.c:298 #13 0x080d60d0 in run_Rmainloop () at ../../../R/src/main/main.c:656 #14 0x08147e90 in main (ac=150798432, av=0x8fd0060) at ../../../R/src/unix/system.c:99 #15 0x42017589 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/i686/libc.so.6 (which is not directly helpful since src/main/pcre.c (where the C source for gsub(*, perl=TRUE) resides) isn't mentioned above. Must be a memory allocation / mismatch / end_of_string problem somewhere. Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel