[R] Split strings based on multiple patterns (plain text)

[Joe Ceradini]

Hopefully this looks better. I did not realize gmail default was html.

I have a dataframe with a column that has many field smashed together.
I need to split the strings in the column into separate columns based
on patterns.

Example of a string that needs to be split:

ugly <- c("Water temp:14: F Waterbody type:Permanent Lake/Pond: Water
pH:Unkwn: Conductivity:Unkwn: Water color: Clear: Water turbidity:
clear: Manmade:no  Permanence:permanent:  Max water depth: <3: Primary
substrate: Silt/Mud: Evidence of cattle grazing: none: Shoreline
Emergent Veg(%): 1-25: Fish present: yes: Fish species: unkwn: no
amphibians observed")
ugly

Far as I can tell, there is not a single pattern that would work for
splitting. Splitting on ":" is close, but not quite right. Each of the
below attributes should be in a separate column, and are present in
the string (above) that needs to be split:

attributes <- c("Water temp", "Waterbody type", "Water pH",
"Conductivity", "Water color", "Water turbidity", "Manmade",
"Permanence", "Max water depth", "Primary substrate", "Evidence of
cattle grazing", "Shoreline Emergent Veg(%)", "Fish present", "Fish
species")

Conceptually, I want to use the vector of attributes to split the
string. However, strsplit only uses the 1st value of the attributes
object:

strplit(ugly, attributes).

Should I loop through the values of "attributes"?
Is there an argument in strsplit I'm missing that will do what I want?
Different approach altogether?

Thanks! Happy Friday.
Joe