[R] regular expression question

[Wacek Kusnierczyk]

markleeds at verizon.net wrote:
> can someone show me how to use a regular expression to break the
> string at the bottom up into its three components :
>
> (-0.791,-0.263]
> (-38,-1.24]
> (0.96,2.43]
>
> I tried to use strplit because of my regexpitis ( it's not curable.
> i've been to many doctors all over NYC. they tell me there's no cure 
> )  but it doesn't work because there also dots inside  the brackets.
> Thanks.
>
> (-0.791,-0.263].(-38,-1.24].(0.96,2.43]
>

here's one way to get a matrix of numeric values:
   
    text = "(-0.791,-0.263].(-38,-1.24].(0.96,2.43]"
    values = matrix(ncol=2, byrow=TRUE,
        as.numeric(
           grep(pattern='.', value=TRUE,
              x=strsplit(x=text, split=']\\.\\(|\\(|]|,')[[1]])))

modify any of the steps according to your needs.

vQ