Can I use gsub() on each element of a data frame?

Question

After importing a table from Wikipedia, I have a list of values of the following form:

    > tbl[2:6]
    $`Internet
    Explorer`
     [1] \"30.71%\" \"3         


        

Answer 1

Like juba I'm uncertain if this way is "better or cleaner" but...to act on all elements of a data frame, you can use apply:

# start with data frame, not list
url <- "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers"
# Get the eleventh table.
tbl <- readHTMLTable(url, which = 11, stringsAsFactors = F)

# use apply on the non-date columns
tbl[, 2:7] <- apply(tbl[, 2:7], 2, function(x) as.numeric(gsub("%", "", x)))