Split string based on alternating character in R

Question

I\'m trying to figure out an efficient way to go about splitting a string like

\"111110000011110000111000\"

into a vector

[1] \         


        

Answer 1

Simple for loop solution

x="aaaaabbcccccccbbbad1111100000222aaabbccd11DaaBB"
res_vector=substr(x,1,1)

for (i in 2:nchar(x)) {
  tmp=substr(x,i,i)
  if (tmp==substr(x,i-1,i-1)) {
    res_vector[length(res_vector)]=paste0(res_vector[length(res_vector)],tmp)
  } else {
    res_vector[length(res_vector)+1]=tmp
  }
}

res_vector

#[1] "aaaaa"  "bb"  "ccccccc"  "bbb"  "a"  "d"  "11111"  "00000"  "222"  "aaa"  "bb"  "cc"  "d"  "11"  "D"  "aa"  "BB"

Or a maybe a little bit faster with a pre-allocated results vector

x="aaaaabbcccccccbbbad1111100000222aaabbccd11DaaBB"
res_vector=rep(NA_character_,nchar(x))
res_vector[1]=substr(x,1,1)
counter=1
old_tmp=''

for (i in 2:nchar(x)) {
  tmp=substr(x,i,i)
  if (tmp==old_tmp) {
    res_vector[counter]=paste0(res_vector[counter],tmp)
  } else {
    res_vector[counter+1]=tmp
    counter=counter+1
  }
  old_tmp=tmp
}

res_vector[!is.na(res_vector)]