[R] strsplit on comma, with a trailing comma in input

Benilton Carvalho bcarvalh at jhsph.edu
Tue Dec 4 00:33:28 CET 2007


my understanding is that this behavior is known (the help file  
mentions something along these lines in the example).

i'd use something like:

theText <- "a,,b,"
theText <- gsub("\\,$", ", ", theText)

and then use strsplit() on "theText"

b

On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:22 PM, dankelley wrote:

>
> I have a comma-separated data file in which trailing commas  
> sometimes occur.
> I am using strsplit to extract the data from this file, and it seems  
> great
> except in cases with trailing comma characters.
>
> The example below illustrates.  What I'd like is to get a fourth  
> element in
> the answer, being an empty string just like the second element.  Is  
> there a
> way I can express my patter (or perhaps specify perl or extended) to  
> get
> that?
>
>
>> strsplit("a,,b,", ",")[[1]]
> [1] "a" ""  "b"
>
>
>
> -- 
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/strsplit-on-comma%2C-with-a-trailing-comma-in-input-tf4940023.html#a14141151
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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