R help - Nov 2016 - Breaking down a list into a table

Dear All,
I asked for support to deal with a hirarchy within a character separated list.
I solved the problem crudely but effectively by

- Choosing for a TSV as input, where in columns that may contain several (or as
well no) items the items are separated via semicolon
- adding semicolons to the first row to grant that the first row has the maximum
number of semicolons of this column
- grasping the column(x<-myarray[,y], where y is some integer value) and
saving it as a TSV (with only one column)
- importing it again, defining it semicolumn-separated, with fill option

To all those who feel pain reading this: Is there a shortcut?
Thank you in advance.
Yours, Ferri

Hi Ferri,

It sounds like the function 'separate' from the tidyr package is what
you
look for,

HTH
Ulrik

On Tue, 22 Nov 2016 at 14:49 Ferri Leberl <ferri.leberl at gmx.at> wrote:



Dear All,
I asked for support to deal with a hirarchy within a character separated
list.
I solved the problem crudely but effectively by

- Choosing for a TSV as input, where in columns that may contain several
(or as well no) items the items are separated via semicolon
- adding semicolons to the first row to grant that the first row has the
maximum number of semicolons of this column
- grasping the column(x<-myarray[,y], where y is some integer value) and
saving it as a TSV (with only one column)
- importing it again, defining it semicolumn-separated, with fill option

To all those who feel pain reading this: Is there a shortcut?
Thank you in advance.
Yours, Ferri

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Thank to Ulrik for the hint.
However, I don't comprehend the function until now:

For example I made up an array "input":

input
     kop      
[1,] "w;d;e;f"
[2,] "w;d;e;f"
[3,] "w;d;e;f"
[4,] "w;d;e;f"
[5,] "w;d;e;f"

and tried to break it into four cols with commmand:

output<-separate(into,kop,into=c("a","b","c","d"),sep=";")

R returned:

Fehler in UseMethod("separate_") : 
  nicht anwendbare Methode f?r 'separate_' auf Objekt der Klasse
"c('matrix', 'character')" angewendet

Could you please explain me my mistake?

Thank you in advance!

Yours, Ferri





?

Gesendet:?Dienstag, 22. November 2016 um 14:57 Uhr
Von:?"Ulrik Stervbo" <ulrik.stervbo at gmail.com>
An:?"Ferri Leberl" <ferri.leberl at gmx.at>,
"r-helpr-project.org" <r-help at r-project.org>
Betreff:?Re: [R] Breaking down a list into a table

Hi Ferri,
?It sounds like the function 'separate' from the tidyr package is what
you look for,
?
HTH
Ulrik?

On Tue, 22 Nov 2016 at 14:49 Ferri Leberl <ferri.leberl at
gmx.at[mailto:ferri.leberl at gmx.at]> wrote:

Dear All,
I asked for support to deal with a hirarchy within a character separated list.
I solved the problem crudely but effectively by

- Choosing for a TSV as input, where in columns that may contain several (or as
well no) items the items are separated via semicolon
- adding semicolons to the first row to grant that the first row has the maximum
number of semicolons of this column
- grasping the column(x<-myarray[,y], where y is some integer value) and
saving it as a TSV (with only one column)
- importing it again, defining it semicolumn-separated, with fill option

To all those who feel pain reading this: Is there a shortcut?
Thank you in advance.
Yours, Ferri

______________________________________________
R-help at r-project.org[mailto:R-help at r-project.org] mailing list -- To
UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help[https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help]
PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html[http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html]
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.