R devel - Sep 2008 - splitting strings efficiently

I have a very long list of strings. Each string actually contains multiple
values separated by a semi-colon. I need to turn each string into a vector
of the values delimited by the semi-colons. I know I can do this very
laboriously by using loops, nchar, and substr, but it is terribly slow. Is
there a basic R function that handles this situation? If not, is there
perhaps a faster way to do it than I currently am, which is to lapply the
following function? Thanks, Mark

#######################################################################################
string.tokenizer.func<-function(string, separator){
  new.vec<- NULL
  newString<- ""
  if(is.null(string)) {new.vec<-""} else {
    for(i in 1:(nchar(string) + 1)){
      if(substr(string, i, i) == separator){
        new.vec<-c(new.vec,newString)
        newString <- ""
      } else {
        newString<-paste(newString, substr(string, i, i), sep="")
      }
    }
    new.vec<-c(new.vec,newString)
  }
  new.vec
}
------------------------------------------------------------
Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry
Indiana University School of Medicine

15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074

(317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail
(317) 399-1219 Home
Skype: mkimpel

******************************************************************

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I knew there HAD to be a basic function, but 'help.search("split
string")'
and 'help("string") did not find it. Thanks for the help on this
elementary
question.
Mark
------------------------------------------------------------
Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry
Indiana University School of Medicine

15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074

(317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail
(317) 399-1219 Home
Skype: mkimpel

******************************************************************


On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Erik Iverson
<iverson@biostat.wisc.edu>wrote:
> ?strsplit
>
> Mark Kimpel wrote:
>
>> I have a very long list of strings. Each string actually contains
multiple
>> values separated by a semi-colon. I need to turn each string into a
vector
>> of the values delimited by the semi-colons. I know I can do this very
>> laboriously by using loops, nchar, and substr, but it is terribly slow.
Is
>> there a basic R function that handles this situation? If not, is there
>> perhaps a faster way to do it than I currently am, which is to lapply
the
>> following function? Thanks, Mark
>>
>>
>>
#######################################################################################
>> string.tokenizer.func<-function(string, separator){
>>  new.vec<- NULL
>>  newString<- ""
>>  if(is.null(string)) {new.vec<-""} else {
>>    for(i in 1:(nchar(string) + 1)){
>>      if(substr(string, i, i) == separator){
>>        new.vec<-c(new.vec,newString)
>>        newString <- ""
>>      } else {
>>        newString<-paste(newString, substr(string, i, i),
sep="")
>>      }
>>    }
>>    new.vec<-c(new.vec,newString)
>>  }
>>  new.vec
>> }
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry
>> Indiana University School of Medicine
>>
>> 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074
>>
>> (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail
>> (317) 399-1219 Home
>> Skype: mkimpel
>>
>> ******************************************************************
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>>
>
>
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