grep using a character vector with multiple patterns

In addition to @Marek’s comment about not including fixed==TRUE, you also need to not have the spaces in your regular expression. It should be "A1|A9|A6".

You also mention that there are lots of patterns. Assuming that they are in a vector

toMatch <- c("A1", "A9", "A6")

Then you can create your regular expression directly using paste and collapse = "|".

matches <- unique (grep(paste(toMatch,collapse="|"), 
                        myfile$Letter, value=TRUE))

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