extracting a regex that might have multiple matches

[tcovert]

I see in the code for extract that only the first match of a regular expression is captured. Is there a sensible way to do what extract does on a column in which one expects the regular expression to match multiple times? Here's an example of what I am trying to accomplish:

t <- as_tibble(list(z = c("a1", "a2b3", "a4b5c6")))
long_t <- extract(t, z, c("y"), regex = regex("(\\d)"), matchID = c("matchID"), remove = FALSE)

I realize the matchID keyword doesn't actually exist, but if it did, it would give us the following for long_t:

# A tibble: 6 x 3
      z     y     matchID
  <chr>     <chr>   <dbl>
1    a1         1       1
2    a2b3       2       1
3    a2b3       3       2
4    a4b5c6     4       1
5    a4b5c6     5       2
6    a4b5c6     6       3

[hadley]

This sort of question is a better fit for https://community.rstudio.com. Do you mind asking it over there? (You might want to read https://www.tidyverse.org/help/ first to maximise your chances of getting a good answer)