should be strsplit(ugly, attributes) not strplit(ugly, attributes).... On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 7:53 PM, Joe Ceradini <joecerad...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hopefully this looks better. I did not realize gmail default was html. > > I have a dataframe with a column that has many field smashed together. > I need to split the strings in the column into separate columns based > on patterns. > > Example of a string that needs to be split: > > ugly <- c("Water temp:14: F Waterbody type:Permanent Lake/Pond: Water > pH:Unkwn: Conductivity:Unkwn: Water color: Clear: Water turbidity: > clear: Manmade:no Permanence:permanent: Max water depth: <3: Primary > substrate: Silt/Mud: Evidence of cattle grazing: none: Shoreline > Emergent Veg(%): 1-25: Fish present: yes: Fish species: unkwn: no > amphibians observed") > ugly > > Far as I can tell, there is not a single pattern that would work for > splitting. Splitting on ":" is close, but not quite right. Each of the > below attributes should be in a separate column, and are present in > the string (above) that needs to be split: > > attributes <- c("Water temp", "Waterbody type", "Water pH", > "Conductivity", "Water color", "Water turbidity", "Manmade", > "Permanence", "Max water depth", "Primary substrate", "Evidence of > cattle grazing", "Shoreline Emergent Veg(%)", "Fish present", "Fish > species") > > Conceptually, I want to use the vector of attributes to split the > string. However, strsplit only uses the 1st value of the attributes > object: > > strplit(ugly, attributes). > > Should I loop through the values of "attributes"? > Is there an argument in strsplit I'm missing that will do what I want? > Different approach altogether? > > Thanks! Happy Friday. > Joe
-- Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Zoology and Physiology Dept. University of Wyoming joecerad...@gmail.com / 914.707.8506 wyocoopunit.org ______________________________________________ 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.