R/replace_kerning.R

In textclean: Text Cleaning Tools

#' Replace Kerned (Spaced) with No Space Version
#' 
#' In typography kerning is the adjustment of spacing.  Often, in informal 
#' writing, adding manual spaces (a form of kerning) coupled with all capital 
#' letters is used for emphasis.  This tool looks for 3 or more consecutive 
#' capital letters with spaces in between and removes the spaces.  Essentially, 
#' the capitalized, kerned version is replaced with the word equivalent.
#' 
#' @param x  The text variable.
#' @param \ldots ignored.
#' @return Returns a vector with kern spaces removed.
#' @references \url{https://stackoverflow.com/a/47438305/1000343}
#' @author StackOverflow user @@ctwheels 
#' @export
#' @examples
#' x <- c(
#'     "Welcome to A I: the best W O R L D!",
#'     "Hi I R is the B O M B for sure: we A G R E E indeed.",
#'     "A sort C A T indeed!",
#'     NA
#' )
#' 
#' replace_kern(x)
replace_kern <- function(x, ...){
    ## a possible second approach from: 
    ##   https://stackoverflow.com/a/47438305/1000343
    ## paste0(
    ##     '(?:(?<=\\P{L})(?=(?:\\p{Lu}\\h+){2}\\p{Lu})|', 
    ##     '\\G(?!\\A))\\p{Lu}\\K\\h+(?=\\p{Lu}(?!\\p{L}))'
    ## )
    gsub(
        paste0(
            "(?:(?=\\b(?:\\p{Lu}\\h+){2}\\p{Lu})|", 
            "\\G(?!\\A))\\p{Lu}\\K\\h+(?=\\p{Lu})"
        ), 
        "", 
        x, 
        perl=TRUE
    )
}