String length

Our next stringr function is str_length(). str_length() takes a vector of strings as input and returns the number of characters in each string. For example, try finding the number of characters in Batman's name:

str_length(c("Bruce", "Wayne"))

This is very similar to the base function nchar() but you'll see in the exercises str_length() handles factors in an intuitive way, whereas nchar() will just return an error.

Historically, nchar() was even worse, rather than returning an error if you passed it a factor, it would return the number of characters in the numeric encoding of the factor. Thankfully this behavior has been fixed, but it was one of the original motivations behind str_length().

Take your first look at babynames by asking if girls' names are longer than boys' names.

This is a part of the course

“String Manipulation with stringr in R”

View Course

Exercise instructions

We've pulled out just the names from 2014, and created the vectors boy_names and girl_names for you. (If you want to learn about the filter() function, take the Data Manipulation in R with dplyr course!).

Take a look at the boy_names vector, it's long, so use head() to see the first few elements.
Use str_length() on boy_names to find the length of each name and save the result to boy_length.
Take a look at the lengths. Again, use head(). Can you see the correspondence with boy_names?
Find the length of all the girls' names. Call this girl_length.
Find the difference in mean length between boys' and girls' names by subtracting the mean length of boys' names from that of girls' names.
Confirm str_length() works on factors, by calling it on factor(boy_names). Again, you'll want to just look at the head().

Hands-on interactive exercise

Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.

library(stringr)
library(babynames)
library(dplyr)

# Extracting vectors for boys' and girls' names
babynames_2014 <- filter(babynames, year == 2014)
boy_names <- filter(babynames_2014, sex == "M")$name
girl_names <- filter(babynames_2014, sex == "F")$name

# Take a look at a few boy_names
___

# Find the length of all boy_names
boy_length <- ___

# Take a look at a few lengths
___

# Find the length of all girl_names
girl_length <- ___

# Find the difference in mean length
___

# Confirm str_length() works with factors
head(___)

Edit and Run Code