Thank you everyone for the codes and the link. They work well! Mr. Lemon, thank you for the detailed code and the explanations. I appreciate it. One thing though, in the last line
sapply(split_strings,fill_strings,list(max_length,element_sets)) should it be unlist instead of list - I get this error "Error in FUN(X[[i]], ...) : (list) object cannot be coerced to type 'integer'". Thanks again! On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 9:19 AM, Jim Lemon <drjimle...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Miluji, > While the other answers are correct in general, I noticed that your > request was for the elements of an incomplete string to be placed in the > same positions as in the complete strings. Perhaps this will help: > > strings<-list("pc_m2_45_ssp3_wheat","pc_m2_45_ssp3_wheat", > "ssp3_maize","m2_wheat","pc_m2_45_ssp3_maize") > split_strings<-strsplit(unlist(strings),"_") > max_length <- max(sapply(split_strings,length)) > complete_sets<-split_strings[sapply(split_strings,length)==max_length] > element_sets<-list() > > # build a list with the unique elements of each complete string > for(i in 1:max_length) > element_sets[[i]]<-unique(sapply(complete_sets,"[",i)) > > # function to guess the position of the elements in a partial string > # and return them in the hopefully correct positions > fill_strings<-function(split_string,max_length,element_sets) { > if(length(split_string) < max_length) { > new_split_string<-rep(NA,max_length) > for(i in 1:length(split_string)) { > for(j in 1:length(complete_sets)) { > if(grep(split_string[i],element_sets[j])) > new_split_string[j]<-split_string[i] > } > } > return(new_split_string) > } > return(split_string) > } > > # however, if you know that the incomplete strings will always > # be composed of the last elements in the complete strings > fill_strings<-function(split_string,max_length) { > lenstring<-length(split_string) > if(lenstring < max_length) > split_string<-c(rep(NA,max_length-lenstring),split_string) > return(split_string) > } > > sapply(split_strings,fill_strings,list(max_length,element_sets)) > > Jim > > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 7:56 AM, Miluji Sb <miluj...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I have a list of strings of different lengths and would like to split each >> string by underscore "_" >> >> pc_m2_45_ssp3_wheat >> pc_m2_45_ssp3_wheat >> ssp3_maize >> m2_wheat >> >> I would like to separate each part of the string into different columns >> such as >> >> pc m2 45 ssp3 wheat >> >> But because of the different lengths - I would like NA in the columns for >> the variables have fewer parts such as >> >> NA NA NA m2 wheat >> >> I have tried unlist(strsplit(x, "_")) to split, it works for one variable >> but not for the list - gives me "non-character argument" error. I would >> highly appreciate any help. Thank you! >> >> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.