Tena koe Jonas Something like the following may help, although you should probably read the help on regexpr regarding locales.
Names <- c("filia Maria", "vidua Joh Dirck Kleve (oo 02.02.1732)", "Bernardus Engelb Franciscus Linde j.u.Doktor referendarius sereniss Judex et gograven Rheinensis") Names1 <- sub('^[0-9a-z]* ', '', Names) Names1 ttReg <- regexpr(' [^A-Z]', Names1) ifelse (ttReg>0, substring(Names1, 1, regexpr(' [^A-Z]', Names1)-1), Names1) Incidentally, it is not good practice to call your objects 'names' since that is a function in R. HTH .... Peter Alspach > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces@r- > project.org] On Behalf Of Richter-Dumke, Jonas > Sent: Wednesday, 9 November 2011 1:49 a.m. > To: r-help@r-project.org > Subject: [R] match first consecutive list of capitalized words in > string > > Dear R-Helpers, > > this is my first post ever to a mailing list, so please feel free to > point out any missunderstandings on my side regarding the conventions > of this mailing list. > > My problem: > > Assuming the following character vector is given: > > names <- c("filia Maria", "vidua Joh Dirck Kleve (oo 02.02.1732)", > "Bernardus Engelb Franciscus Linde j.u.Doktor referendarius sereniss > Judex et gograven Rheinensis") > > Is there a regular expression matching the first consecutive list of > capitalized words in a single characterstring ("Maria", "Joh Dirck > Kleve", "Bernardus Engelb Franciscus Linde")? > This expression would very reliably seperate the person names from the > additional information in my historic church register transcription. > > Thank you very much for your effort, > > Jonas > > ---------- > This mail has been sent through the MPI for Demographic > ...{{dropped:10}} > > ______________________________________________ > 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. The contents of this e-mail are confidential and may be subject to legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disseminate, distribute or reproduce all or any part of this e-mail or attachments. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete all material pertaining to this e-mail. Any opinion or views expressed in this e-mail are those of the individual sender and may not represent those of The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited. ______________________________________________ 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.