[R] regexpr - ignore all special characters and punctuation in a string

[Dimitri Liakhovitski]

Hello!

Please point me in the right direction.
I need to match 2 strings, but focusing ONLY on characters, ignoring
all special characters and punctuation signs, including (), "", etc..

For example:
I want the following to return: TRUE

"What a nice day today! - Story of happiness: Part 2." ==
   "What a nice day today: Story of happiness (Part 2)"


-- 
Thank you!
Dimitri Liakhovitski