How to Convert Strings to Lowercase in R (With Examples)

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To convert strings to lowercase in R, you can use the tolower() function. This function takes a character vector as an argument and returns a vector with all characters converted to lowercase. You can also use the chartr() function to replace characters with other characters, including converting all characters to lowercase. Examples of these functions and their outputs are provided.

You can use the built-in tolower() function in R to convert strings to lowercase.

#convert string to lowercase
tolower(string_name)

The following examples show how to use this function in practice.

Example 1: Convert a Single String to Lowercase

The following code shows how to convert a single string to lowercase in R:

#create string
my_string <- 'THIS IS A SENTENCE WITH WORDS.'

#convert string to all lowercase
tolower(my_string)

[1] "this is a sentence with words."

Note that the tolower() function converts all characters in a string to lowercase

Example 2: Convert Each String in Column to Lowercase

The following code shows how to convert every string in a column of a data frame to lowercase:

#create data frame
df <- data.frame(team=c('Mavs', 'Nets', 'Spurs'),
                 points=c(99, 94, 85),
                 rebounds=c(31, 22, 29))

#view data frame
df

   team points rebounds
1  Mavs     99       31
2  Nets     94       22
3 Spurs     85       29

#convert team names to lowercase
df$team <- tolower(df$team)

#view updated data frame
df

   team points rebounds
1  mavs     99       31
2  nets     94       22
3 spurs     85       29

Example 3: Convert Strings in Multiple Columns to Lowercase

The following code shows how to convert strings in multiple columns of a data frame to lowercase:

#create data frame
df <- data.frame(team=c('Mavs', 'Nets', 'Spurs'),
                 conf=c('WEST', 'EAST', 'WEST'),
                 points=c(99, 94, 85))

#view data frame
df

   team conf points
1  Mavs WEST     99
2  Nets EAST     94
3 Spurs WEST     85

#convert team and conference to lowercase
df[c('team', 'conf')] <- sapply(df[c('team', 'conf')], function(x) tolower(x))

#view updated data frame
df
   team conf points
1  mavs west     99
2  nets east     94
3 spurs west     85

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks related to strings in R:

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