substr not by position but by symbol

Hi all,

One of my variables looks like this:

.7_-.3_-.2_.9

And this is a character variable. I made this by combining four different
number like .7, -.3, -.2, and .9 using paste function.
Now, I want to go back to original format from this one combined character
variable. For instance, I want to extract 3rd number, -.2, from this
character.

I know I can use substr function, but each position is not fixed because
sometimes each number has negative sign. Instead, it would be good if
there
is any extracting function which can extract character not by position but
by specific symbol, in my case symbol '_'. Is there any similar function
for doing in R?

Thanks!

YN

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