Feature Request: `str_extract()` by Name of `group` As Well as by Position

[GregYannes]

Currently we can extract (say) a character matrix via capturing groups, using an integer vector to reference groups by position.

library(stringr)

shopping_list <- c("apples x4", "bag of flour", "bag of sugar", "milk x2")
named_regex <- "(?<g1>[a-z]+) of (?<g2>[a-z]+)"

str_extract(shopping_list, named_regex, group = 1:2)
#>      g1    g2     
#> [1,] NA    NA     
#> [2,] "bag" "flour"
#> [3,] "bag" "sugar"
#> [4,] NA    NA

^{Created on 2026-05-15 with reprex v2.1.1}

It would be nice to reference groups by name, using a character vector.

str_extract(shopping_list, named_regex, group = c("g1", "g2"))

Mixing the two is probably out of scope.

str_extract(shopping_list, named_regex, group = list(1, "g2"))