R strsplit keep last empty element as empty string

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R's strsplit drops the last element if "empty" (example 2) but not when occurring first (example 3) or in the middle of the vector to split (example 4).

> unlist(strsplit(x = "1,4", split = ",")) #Example 1
[1] "1" "4"
> unlist(strsplit(x = ",4", split = ",")) #Example 2
[1] ""  "4"
> unlist(strsplit(x = "1,", split = ",")) #Example 3
[1] "1"
> unlist(strsplit(x = "1,,,4", split = ",")) #Example 4
[1] "1" ""  ""  "4"

Is there a way to parse strings that allows keeping the last element if empty after split :

> strmagic(x = "1,", split = ",") #strmagic being the wanted function
[1] "1" ""

A solution with other packages is here (is seems). Can it be done in base R?

UPDATE

Will adding a filler element be necessary ed then a la:

strmagic <- function(v, sep)lapply(v, function(x)head(unlist(strsplit(paste(x, "-", sep = sep), split = sep)), -1))
strsplit r
1 Answers

Weird. This works but is not the most efficient. ZAQ is just a set of random characters

sp <- function( X ){
    X <- paste0( X, "ZAQ" )
    X <- unlist(strsplit(x = X, split = ","))
    X <- gsub( "ZAQ" ,"" ,X) 
    X
}
sp("1,4")
sp(",4")
sp("1,")
sp("1,,,4")
user_22867790
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