Set Multiple Split Arguments in strsplit Function in R (Example)
This article shows how to define several split conditions in the strsplit function in the R programming language.
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Sound good? Great, let’s get started…
Construction of Example Data
We’ll use the following data as basement for this R tutorial:
my_string <- "aaaxbbbycccxddd" # Create example character string my_string # Print example character string # [1] "aaaxbbbycccxddd"
Have a look at the previously shown output of the RStudio console. It shows that our example data is a single character string containing different letters.
Example: Specify Multiple Conditions in strsplit() Function
In this example, I’ll explain how to divide a character string based on multiple splitting arguments within the strsplit function.
Let’s first see how the strsplit function works with only one split condition:
strsplit(my_string, "x") # strsplit with one condition # [[1]] # [1] "aaa" "bbbyccc" "ddd"
As you can see, the previous R code has split our character string at each position where the character x was stored in the input data object.
Now, let’s assume that we want to split our character string according to two different splitting conditions, i.e. x and y. Then, we can use the | operator as shown in the following R code:
strsplit(my_string, "x|y") # strsplit with multiple conditions # [[1]] # [1] "aaa" "bbb" "ccc" "ddd"
The previous output shows that we have split our character string at each positions of x and y. Looks good!
Video, Further Resources & Summary
If you need more explanations on the R programming codes of this article, you may watch the following video on the Statistics Globe YouTube channel. I’m explaining the R programming codes of this article in the video instruction.
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In addition, you may have a look at the related R tutorials on www.statisticsglobe.com. I have released numerous tutorials that are related to the usage of several split conditions in the strsplit function already:
- strsplit Function in R
- Split Code Over Multiple Lines in R
- Specify Multiple Arguments in apply Functions
- Split Data Frame Variable into Multiple Columns
- Useful Functions in R
- The R Programming Language
In this R tutorial you have learned how to set multiple split conditions in the strsplit function. If you have additional questions, let me know in the comments.
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