Retrieve regular expression groups

Note that X and FUN are also arguments to sapply

args(sapply)

function (X, FUN, ..., simplify = TRUE, USE.NAMES = TRUE)
NULL

so the sapply construct in your post has the effect of applying c
to tmp, pats and strapply so the output you observe is correct. 
The sapply  command never even calls strapply.

Ah, I see.  I take it this means it is not possible to use sapply 
with strapply directly.  (I'd have to write a function that wraps 
strapply with different argument names, and then sapply that.)  Anyway, 
I managed to do what I wanted by collapsing my multiple regexes into 
one, so it's good for now.  Thanks for the help.

--OKB (not okblacke)
Brendan Barnwell
"Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go, instead, where there is
no path, and leave a trail."
	--author unknown