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erase

Delete substrings within strings

Description

newStr = erase(str,match) deletes all occurrences of match in str. The erase function returns the remaining text as newStr.

If match is an array, then erase deletes every occurrence of every element of match in str. The str and match arguments do not need to be the same size.

example

Examples

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Create a string array and delete substrings from it.

str = ["the quick brown fox jumps";
       "over the lazy dog"]
str = 2x1 string
    "the quick brown fox jumps"
    "over the lazy dog"

Delete the substring "the " from str. The erase function deletes both instances.

newStr = erase(str,"the ")
newStr = 2x1 string
    "quick brown fox jumps"
    "over lazy dog"

Delete multiple substrings from str.

match = ["the ","quick ","lazy "];
newStr = erase(str,match)
newStr = 2x1 string
    "brown fox jumps"
    "over dog"

Create a string array of file names, including full paths.

str = ["C:\Temp\MyReport.docx";
       "C:\Data\Experiment1\Trial1\Sample1.csv";
       "C:\Temp\Slides.pptx"]
str = 3x1 string
    "C:\Temp\MyReport.docx"
    "C:\Data\Experiment1\Trial1\Sample1.csv"
    "C:\Temp\Slides.pptx"

Delete the paths, leaving only file names. To match paths, create a pattern using the wildcardPattern function that matches all text that includes a final "\" character. Use that pattern with the erase function.

match = wildcardPattern + "\"
match = pattern
  Matching:

    wildcardPattern + "\"

filenames = erase(str,match)
filenames = 3x1 string
    "MyReport.docx"
    "Sample1.csv"
    "Slides.pptx"

For a list of functions that create pattern objects, see pattern.

Create a character vector. Delete the substring, ' World', including the space character.

chr = 'Hello World'
chr = 
'Hello World'
newChr = erase(chr,' World')
newChr = 
'Hello'

Input Arguments

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Input text, specified as a string array, character vector, or cell array of character vectors.

Text to delete, specified as one of the following:

  • String array

  • Character vector

  • Cell array of character vectors

  • pattern array

Tips

  • To delete multiple occurrences of a match when the occurrences overlap, use the strrep function. erase only deletes the first occurrence when occurrences overlap.

Extended Capabilities

Version History

Introduced in R2016b