[R] Identifying common prefixes from a vector of words, and delete those prefixes

[John Kane]

There MUST be a better way but this will work. 

x <- c("dog.is.an.animal", "cat.is.an.animal", "rat.is.an.animal")
bb <- strsplit(x, "\\.")
myfun <- function(m) m[1]
animals  <- unlist(lapply(bb, myfun))
animals




--- On Thu, 7/31/08, Daren Tan <daren76 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: Daren Tan <daren76 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [R] Identifying common prefixes from a vector of words, and delete those prefixes
> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Received: Thursday, July 31, 2008, 7:11 AM
> For example, c("dog.is.an.animal",
> "cat.is.an.animal", "rat.is.an.animal").
> How can I identify the common prefix is
> ".is.an.animal" and delete it to give
> c("dog", "cat", "rat") ?
>  
> Thanks
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