Help with text separation

Good morning R list,

My apologies if this has *already* answered elsewhere, but I have not found
the answer that I am looking for.

I have a character string, i.e.


form<-c('~ A + B + C + C / D + E + E / F + G + H + I + J + K + L * M')

Now, my aim is to find the position of all those instances of '*' and to
remove said '*'. However, I would also like to remove the preceding
variable name before the '*', the math operator preceding this, and also
the variable name after the '*'. So, here I would like to remove '+L*M'

form<-c('~ A + B * C + C / D + E + E / F * G + H + I + J + K + L * M')
gsub(" \\+ [A-Z] \\* [A-Z]", "", form)

form <- 'abcd'
strsplit(form, '')

So, far I have come up with the following code:

parts<-strsplit(form,' ')
index<-which(unlist(parts)=="*")
for (i in 1:length(index)){
? ?parts[[1]][index[i]]<-list(NULL)
? ?parts[[1]][index[i]+1]<-list(NULL)
? ?parts[[1]][index[i]-1]<-list(NULL)
? ?parts[[1]][index[i]-2]<-list(NULL)
}
new.form<-unlist(parts)

form<-new.form[0]
for (i in 1: length(new.form)){
? ?form<-paste(form,new.form[i], sep="")
}

However, as you can see, I have had to use strsplit in, what I consider a
rather clumsy manner, as the character string (form) has to be in a certain
format. All variables and maths operators require a space between them in
order for strsplit to work in the manner I require.

I would very much like to accomplish what the above code already does, but
without the need for the initial character string having the need for the
aforementioned spaces.

If the list can offer help, I would be most appreciative.

Yours

Mike Griffiths