This help topic is for R version 0.90. For the current version of R, try https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-patched/library/base/html/pmatch.html
pmatch {base}R Documentation

Partial String Matching

Description

pmatch seeks matches for the elements of its first argument among those of its second. If there is a no match, then the value of nomatch is returned and if there is a unique match then the index of the matching value is returned. If there are multiple matches the result depends on the value of duplicates.ok. If duplicates.ok is false multiple matches will result in the value of nomatch being returned, and if it is true, the index of the first matching value will be returned.

Usage

pmatch(x, table, nomatch = NA, duplicates.ok = FALSE)

Arguments

x

the values to be matched.

table

the values to be matched against.

nomatch

the value returned at non-matching positions.

duplicates.ok

should duplicate matches be allowed.

See Also

match, charmatch and match.arg, match.fun, match.call, for function argument matching etc.

Examples

pmatch("", "")                             # returns NA
pmatch("m",   c("mean", "median", "mode")) # returns NA
pmatch("med", c("mean", "median", "mode")) # returns 2

[Package base version 0.90 ]