>> mywords<- c("harry","met","sally","subway10","1800Movies","12345", "not >> correct 123") >> all.letters <- grep("^[[:alpha:]]*$", mywords) >> all.numbers <- grep("^[[:digit:]]*$", mywords) # numbers >> mixed <- grep("^[[:digit:][:alpha:]]*$", mywords)
mywords<- c("harry","met","sally","subway10","1800Movies","12345", "not correct 123", "") mywords[grepl("^[[:digit:][:alpha:]]*$", mywords)] So maybe you should use mywords[grepl("^[[:digit:][:alpha:]]+$", mywords)] And grepl is highly recommended over grep. Hadley -- http://had.co.nz/ ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.