R devel - Apr 2006 - (PR#8777) strsplit does [not] return correct value when spliting ""

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Apr 2006, Charles Dupont wrote:
[...]
> > The man page states in the value section that strsplit returns:
> >      A list of length 'length(x)' the 'i'-th element
of which contains
> >      the vector of splits of 'x[i]'.
> >
> > It mentions no change in behavior if the value of x[i] = "".
>
> There is none, for there are no splits in that case.  I did ask you to
> point to the documentation of the rule you are assuming, and I can't
find
> any.
No, the documentation does not explicitely mention this, but shouldn't
"there
are not splits" mean: So the string is returned unchanged?
Consider these examples - I don't think that's the behavior you'd
expect
unless told otherwise:

a <- "a"
b <- ""
a == strsplit (a, ",")	# TRUE
b == strsplit (b, ",")	# FALSE

So, maybe there is a general rule that empty elements get purged?

strsplit ("a,,b", ",")
[[1]]
[1] "a" ""  "b"

strsplit ("a", "a")
[[1]]
[1] ""

Apparently not so. Then why does an empty string get "split" to a
non-existent
string?

Note: I don't really care much about what the behavior is, but if the 
described behavior is indeed intended, I think it should be documented. IMO 
it's pretty counter intuitive.

Regards
Thomas
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