[R] Splitting a set of vectors in a list

[John Kane]

I have a set of character vectors of uneven length
that I have stored in a list.  I can easily enough get
any column of them  using lapply but what I want is to
be able to create a matrix of them.  Other than some
kind of brute force looping approach I have drawn a
blank. 

Would somebody please suggest something? Thanks
 
Example.

mylist <- list(aa=c("cat","peach" ), bb=c("dog",
"apple", "iron"), 
         cc = c("rabbit", "orange", "zinc", "silk"))
myfun <- function(dff) dff[1]       
vect1  <- unlist(lapply(mylist, myfun))


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