They look like file path, so you can make use of basename() first, then use gsub to strip the suffix.
> x<-c("F:/Naval_Live_Oaks/2005/data//BE.tif","F:/Naval_Live_Oaks/2005/data//CH.tif") > x2<-sapply(x,basename,USE.NAMES=FALSE) > gsub("[.].{1,}$","",x2) [1] "BE" "CH" Ronggui 2009/5/26 Monica Pisica <pisican...@hotmail.com>: > > Hi everybody, > > I have a vector of characters and i would like to extract certain parts. My > vector is named metr_list: > > [1] "F:/Naval_Live_Oaks/2005/data//BE.tif" > [2] "F:/Naval_Live_Oaks/2005/data//CH.tif" > [3] "F:/Naval_Live_Oaks/2005/data//CRR.tif" > [4] "F:/Naval_Live_Oaks/2005/data//HOME.tif" > > And i would like to extract BE, CH, CRR, and HOME in a different vector named > "names.id" for example. I read the help files for sub and grep and the likes > but i have to recognize that i did not understand it. So i've done this > (which does the job but extremely clumsy): > > b <- strsplit(metr_list, "//") > b <- unlist(b) > d <- strsplit(b, "\\.") > d <- unlist(d) > names.id <- d[c(2, 5, 8, 11)] > > Can anybody show what would be the proper way to achieve this with some > explanations? > > Thanks, > > Monica > _________________________________________________________________ > HotmailĀ® goes with you. > > ial_Mobile1_052009 > ______________________________________________ > 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. > -- HUANG Ronggui, Wincent PhD Candidate Dept of Public and Social Administration City University of Hong Kong Home page: http://asrr.r-forge.r-project.org/rghuang.html ______________________________________________ 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.