strsplit does not conform to documentation (PR#379)

Peter Dalgaard BSA p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk
18 Dec 1999 21:28:51 +0100


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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