converting character matrix to POSIXct matrix

I thought this is a common question but rseek/google searches don't yield
any relevant hit.

I have a matrix of character strings, which are time stamps,

time.m[1:5,1:5]

      [,1]           [,2]           [,3]           [,4]           [,5]

[1,] "08:00:20.799" "08:00:20.799" "08:00:20.799" "08:00:20.799"
"08:00:20.799"
[2,] "08:00:21.996" "08:00:22.071" "08:00:23.821" "08:00:24.370"
"08:00:25.573"
[3,] "08:00:29.200" "08:00:29.200" "08:00:29.591" "08:00:30.368"
"08:00:30.536"
[4,] "08:00:31.073" "08:00:31.372" "08:00:31.384" "08:00:31.403"
"08:00:31.867"
[5,] "08:00:31.867" "08:00:31.867" "08:00:31.971" "08:00:34.571"
"08:00:34.571"

And i would like to convert it to a POSIXct matrix. I tried this,

time1 = lapply(time.m, function(tt)strptime(tt, "%H:%M:%OS"))

but it yields a list.

Any tip is appreciated.


Horace

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