Subset based on list of strings using grepl()?

Question

I\'m looking to do something seemingly very simple. I would like to subset a data frame in R using the grepl() command -- or something like it -- on several different phras

Answer 1

You can combine your mynames vector with the regular expression operator | and use grep.

tmp[grep(paste(mynames, collapse='|'), tmp$Name, ignore.case=TRUE),]

#           Name Age Height
# 1    Mary Anne  31      1
# 2   Mary Smith  23      2
# 3 Potter, Mary  23      3
# 4    mary jane  55      4
# 5          Bob  32      5
# 6    bob smith  36      6
# 7   smith, BOB  45      7