R: Using "Gsub" a lost my data frame format - regex

Question

I have this Data Frame:
Campaña Visitas Compras
1 faceBOOKAds-1 524 2
2 FacebookAds-2 487 24
3 fcebookAds-3 258 4
4 Email1 8 7
And i want this:
Campaña Visitas Compras
1 FBAds1 524 2
2 FBAds2 487 24
3 FBAds3 258 4
4 Email1 8 7
1) I've read that "GSUB" would do the work so i've used this:
DataGoogle2 <- gsub("faceBOOKAds-1", "FBAds", DataGoogle1$Campaña)
But i get this vector object (As you see i've lost my data.frame format):
[1] "FBAds" "FacebookAds-2" "fcebookAds-3" "Email1" ...
2) Then i try to use: as.data.frame:
DataGoogle2 <- as.data.frame(gsub("faceBOOKAds-1", "FBAds", DataGoogle1$Campaña))
But get this (No data frame format):
1 FBAds
2 fFacebookAds-2
3 fcebookAds-3
4 Email1
How can i get what i need? I know that the replacement method is not so good. What i need the most is not to loose the Data Frame format, but any help with the REGEX part is welcome!

Answer 1

You can use transform (and another regex).
DataGoogle2 <- transform(DataGoogle1, Campaña = sub("(?i)fa?cebook(.*)-(.*)",
"FB\\1\\2", Campaña))
# Campaña Visitas Compras
# 1 FBAds1 524 2
# 2 FBAds2 487 24
# 3 FBAds3 258 4
# 4 Email1 8 7
The functions sub and gsub return a vector. Hence, the information of all other columns is not present in the output. With transform you can modify columns of an existing data frame and return a new one.
In the regex, (?i) starts the non-case sensitive mode. Furthermore, I used sub since I assume that there is never more than one match per string.

Answer 2

When you used the following code:
DataGoogle2 <- gsub("faceBOOKAds-1", "FBAds", DataGoogle1$Campaña)
R reads that you want to your data frame to consist of DataGoogle1$Campaña column only and hence you get that output.
In stead, try this:
DataGoogle2$Campaña <- gsub("faceBOOKAds-1", "FBAds", DataGoogle1$Campaña)
This way you are saying that you want the COLUMN and not the DATA FRAME to be transformed. In any code, your LHS of expression is as important as your RHS code.
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

You could also do direct replacement on the first column. This replaces the desired parts in the first column only by operating on the first column only. And this will keep the desired data frame structure.
> dat[[1]] <- gsub("f(.*)[-]", "FBAds", dat[[1]], ignore.case = TRUE)
> dat
# Campaña Visitas Compras
# 1 FBAds1 524 2
# 2 FBAds2 487 24
# 3 FBAds3 258 4
# 4 Email1 8 7
...presuming your original data is called dat.