x <- c("Anna & x, Anna & x", # "Alb, Berta 222, Alb", "Al Pacino", "Abb cd xy, Abb cd xy, C123, C123, B") library(stringr) str_extract_all(x, "([^\\s,](?:[^,]*[^\\s,])?)(?!.*\\1)")
Standard input is empty
[[1]] [1] "Anna & x" [[2]] [1] "Berta 222" "Alb" [[3]] [1] "Al Pacino" [[4]] [1] "Abb cd xy" "C123" "B"