R devel - Dec 1999 - strsplit does not conform to documentation (PR#379)

Description:

     Split the Strings in `x' into substrings according to
     the presence of substring `split' within them.

--------------------
> strsplit("acbdefgSPLIThigkilmnSpPqrst","SPLIT")
[[1]]
[1] "acbdefg"  "higkilmn" "p"       
"qrst"

--------------------

Apparently, it will 

Split the Strings in `x' into substrings according to the presence of
ANY CHARACTER FOUND IN substring `split'.

-------------------

Was this intended? I expected, as the documentation implies that the
result from above would be:

"acbdefg"   "higkilmnSpPqrst"


Chuck Berry

--please do not edit the information below--

Version:
 platform = sparc-sun-solaris2.7
 arch = sparc
 os = solaris2.7
 system = sparc, solaris2.7
 status = Release
 major = 0
 minor = 65.1
 year = 1999
 month = October
 day = 07
 language = R

Search Path:
 .GlobalEnv, Autoloads, package:base
> 
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cberry@tajo.ucsd.edu writes:
> Description:
> 
>      Split the Strings in `x' into substrings according to
>      the presence of substring `split' within them.
> 
> Apparently, it will 
> 
> Split the Strings in `x' into substrings according to the presence of
> ANY CHARACTER FOUND IN substring `split'.
> 
> -------------------
> 
> Was this intended? I expected, as the documentation implies that the
> result from above would be:
> 
> "acbdefg"   "higkilmnSpPqrst"
Yes it was intended. Strsplit interfaces to the strtok() C routine,

       char *strtok(char *s, const char *delim);

DESCRIPTION
       A `token' is a nonempty string of characters not occurring
       in the string delim, followed by  \0  or  by  a  character
       occurring in delim.

and `split' gets passed as `delim'. The documentation is bad, though. 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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