Reshape multiple categorical variables to binary response variables

Question

I am trying to convert the following format:

mydata <- data.frame(movie = c(\"Titanic\", \"Departed\"), 
                     actor1 = c(\"Leo\", \"Jack\"         


        

Answer 1

How much spice is too much? Here is a solution via tidyr:

library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)

mydata %>%
  gather(actor,name,starts_with("actor")) %>%
  mutate(present = 1) %>%
  select(-actor) %>%
  spread(name,present,fill = 0)

       movie Jack Kate Leo
 1 Departed    1    0   1
 2  Titanic    0    1   1