Spreading a two column data frame with tidyr

Question

I have a data frame that looks like this:

  a b
1 x 8
2 x 6
3 y 3
4 y 4
5 z 5
6 z 6

and I want to turn it into this:

  x y          


        

Answer 1

Somehow like this?

df <- data.frame(ind = rep(1:min(table(df$a)), length(unique(df$a))), df)
df %>% spread(a, b) %>% select(-ind)
  ind x y z
1   1 8 3 5
2   2 6 4 6