[R] Best way to strsplit a column

[Dimitris Rizopoulos]

try the following:

strg <- c("123:abc", "qwe:789f", "abcde", "a:fd", "567")
sapply(strsplit(strg, ":"), function(x){
    if (length(x) == 1) x <- c(x, NA)
    x
})


I hope it helps.

Best,
Dimitris

----
Dimitris Rizopoulos
Biostatistical Centre
School of Public Health
Catholic University of Leuven

Address: Kapucijnenvoer 35, Leuven, Belgium
Tel: +32/(0)16/336899
Fax: +32/(0)16/337015
Web: http://med.kuleuven.be/biostat/
     http://www.student.kuleuven.be/~m0390867/dimitris.htm


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Brewer" <daniel.brewer at icr.ac.uk>
To: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 2:54 PM
Subject: [R] Best way to strsplit a column


> Hello,
>
> I have a data.frame with a column that I would like to split into 
> based
> around the delimiter ":".  This is a useful feature in Excel.  I 
> cannot
> work out the best way to do it in R.  I am sure you need to use
> strsplit, but that returns a list.  The problem is that some values 
> in
> the column do not contain a ":" so should have a "NA" in the second
> column of the result, and this makes doing an unlist a non-starter.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Daniel Brewer
>
> The Institute of Cancer Research: Royal Cancer Hospital, a 
> charitable Company Limited by Guarantee, Registered in England under 
> Company No. 534147 with its Registered Office at 123 Old Brompton 
> Road, London SW7 3RP.
>
> This e-mail message is confidential and for use by the...{{dropped:14}}