Assuming that by elements you mean characters ("2E" is the first element of x but "E" is the last character in x[1]) then this will create a character matrix of dimensions: length(x) by 2 such that each row corresponds to one component of x and the second column in that row holds its last character while the first column in that row holds a string of the prior characters.
> x <- c("2E","5W","12H") > library(gsubfn) > strapply(x, "(.+)(.)$", c, simplify = rbind) [,1] [,2] [1,] "2" "E" [2,] "5" "W" [3,] "12" "H" The above assumes the latest version of gsubfn on CRAN. On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Erin Hodgess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear R People: > > Here is a toy example: > >> x <- c("2E","5W","12H") >> substr(x,2,2) > [1] "E" "W" "2" >> > > Sometimes x has 3 elements, sometimes 2. I want to extract the last > element, and then extract the other 1 or 2 elements. > > How can I do this, please? > > TIA, > Sincerely, > Erin > > > -- > Erin Hodgess > Associate Professor > Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences > University of Houston - Downtown > mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.