substring with different formats

["Boylan, Richard" <rboylan@bus.olemiss.edu>]

Hello: I was wondering if anyone had extended the * substring * command to allow for something

like this:

 

x <- c("Alabama, Northern", "Alaska", "Georgia, Southern")

unpaste( x, ",")

 

[[1]] "Alabama"  "Alaska"  "Georgia"

[[2]] "Northern" "NA"  "Southern"

 

In other words, extending unpaste to the case in which the separtor does not exist for all

observations.

 

Thanks.

 

Richard