mutate() and str_replace() function

Question

I'm trying to remove any strings that contains the word "Seattle" in the column named "County" in the table named Population

    Population %>%
    mutate( str_replace(County, "Seattle", ""))

It gives me an error message.

Answer 1

I suspect you are getting an error because in your mutate you aren't defining what column you're mutating...

Also, I think you will have better success with an if_else statement detecting the string pattern of Seattle using grepl and then replacing the contents. Below is the code I've used for something similar.

Population %>%
mutate(County = if_else(grepl("Seattle", County),"",County)) 

The grepl will detect the string pattern in the County field and provide a TRUE/FALSE return. From there, you just define what to do if it is found to be true, i.e. replace it with nothing (""), or keep the value as is (County).