to.minutes.R

to.minutes <-function(x) {
	#regexpr("(\\d{1,2}:)?\\d{1,2}\\.\\d{1,2}", x, perl=T)
	idx<-gregexpr(":", x, perl=T)
	# try to turn hh:mm:ss interval  to a count in minutes.
	mapply(function(ss,ids) {
		if(length(ids)==2) {
			as.numeric(substr(ss,1,ids[1]-1)) * 60 + 
			as.numeric(substr(ss,ids[1]+1, ids[2]-2))+ as.numeric(substr(ss,ids[2]+1, nchar(ss)))/60
		} else if (length(ids)==1) {
			as.numeric(substr(ss,1,ids[1]-1)) + as.numeric(substr(ss,ids[1]+1, nchar(ss)))/60
		} else {
			NA	
		}
	}, x, idx)

}
to.minutes(c("15:55", "1:30", "1:30:40.1"))