Split columns in dataframe with NA

Question

I have a df like this:

df <- data.frame(FOO = c(\'A|B|C\', \'A|B\', \'B|C\', \'A\', \'C\'))

> df
    FOO
1 A|B|C
2   A|B
3   B|C
4     A
5            


        

Answer 1

You can try a tidyverse as well

library(tidyverse)
df %>%
  rownames_to_column() %>% 
  separate_rows(FOO, sep="[|]") %>% 
  mutate(L=factor(FOO, labels = paste0("X",1:length(unique(FOO))))) %>% 
  spread(L, FOO) %>% 
  select(-1)
    X1   X2   X3
1    A    B    C
2    A    B 
3     B    C
4    A  
5      C

It is also generally working e.g. df <- data.frame(FOO = c('A|B|C', 'A|B', 'B|C', 'A', 'C', 'B|D|F')). In addition you can set the levels e.g. B>C>A by yourself using levels = c("B", "C", "A") in the factor function in the mutate step.