How to use "." as pattern in stringr::str_split() function

Asked Aug 30 '22 at 04:56

Active Aug 30 '22 at 04:56

Viewed 23 times

I'm trying to split a string containing "."

For example : "Who.am.I?"

"Who", "am", "I?"

In a similar attempt, it succeeded in splitting characters by "&" by using stringr::str_split() For example:

stringr::str_split("Who&am&I?", pattern="&")
[[1]]
[1] "Who" "am" "I?"

It can be divided like this.

However, changing & to. yields the following results

stringr::str_split("Who.am.I?", pattern=".")
[[1]]
[1] "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ""

Why return this kind of output?
Is there a way to use "." as a pattern? Could you tell us about the above two points?

I really appreciate any help you can provide.

Tokunaga

asked Aug 30 '22 at 04:56

Shinji Tokunaga

use fixed("."). – MichaelChirico Aug 30 '22 at 05:07
1

See the linked question and answers. By default `pattern` is a regular expression, and "." means "match any character", unless you escape it or use fixed. – neilfws Aug 30 '22 at 05:09
Hi. Thank you for your kind response. I understand it very well now. – Shinji Tokunaga Aug 30 '22 at 05:33
Thanks to your advice I got the following result stringr::str_split("Who.am.I?", pattern="\\.") [[1]] [1] "Who" "am" "I?" – Shinji Tokunaga Aug 30 '22 at 05:40