[R] Parsing data with an uneven number of delimiters

[jim holtman]

Try this:

> l1<-c("a/a/a","b/bb/bbb","cc/c")
> l2<-strsplit(l1,"/")
> # determine maximum length
> maxLen <- max(sapply(l2, length))
> # pad to maximum length
> do.call('data.frame', lapply(l2, function(x)c(x, rep(NA, maxLen-length(x)))))
  c..a....a....a.. c..b....bb....bbb.. c..cc....c...NA.
1                a                   b               cc
2                a                  bb                c
3                a                 bbb             <NA>
>
>



On 5/3/07, Kevin Burke <yankeesblow at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> I have a list of data that is delimited by a / and, as long as there is an equal number of delimiters, I can parse the data and put it into a data frame:
>
> > t1<-c("a/a/a","b/bb/bbb","ccc/cc/c")
> > t2<-strsplit(t1,"/")
> > t3<-data.frame(t2)
> > t3
>  c..a....a....a.. c..b....bb....bbb.. c..ccc....cc....c..
> 1                a                   b                 ccc
> 2                a                  bb                  cc
> 3                a                 bbb                   c
>
> However, if I don't have an equal number of delimiters, this technique doesn't work:
>
> > l1<-c("a/a/a","b/bb/bbb","cc/c")
> > l2<-strsplit(l1,"/")
> > l3<-data.frame(l2)
> Error in data.frame(c("a", "a", "a"), c("b", "bb", "bbb"), c("cc", "c" :
>        arguments imply differing number of rows: 3, 2
>
> Is there an easy way to get this into a data frame with NA's (or something else) where the missing data would be?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Kevin Burke
>
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-- 
Jim Holtman
Cincinnati, OH
+1 513 646 9390

What is the problem you are trying to solve?