Thanks for all the helpful replies to my question
about string handling. I will try to be more careful
in making general comments about R, about which I
still have much to learn.
The string handling I need to do is not that
sophisticated (somewhat contradicting my previous
message) and can be done in Fortran 95 with
"convenience" intrinsic functions such as INDEX, TRIM,
ADJUSTL, SCAN, VERIFY . Figuring out the R equivalents
using the functions cited in the replies will be a
good exercise for me.