processing negative number in “accounting” format

Question

I have dataset, which negative value is presented with a bracket around the number i.e. (10)==-10, it is in csv format, how can I process it so that R will inte

Answer 1

If you know the surrounding parentheses will be the only ones in the unit, you can create a function to deal with them:

test <- c(10, "(10)", 5)
negative_paren <- function(vec){
  #the backspace escapes the special "(" character
  vec <- gsub("\\(","-",vec) 
  vec <- gsub("\\)","",vec)
  vec <- as.numeric(vec)
  return(vec)
}
negative_paren(test)
[1]  10 -10   5