Split one column into two : Column1-1st split and column2-rest in R

Question

my data is in a single column and I want to get the split output into 2 column.I need both output columns.

input column is....

column

HOUSEHOLDS-Total households - Female householder- under 18 years  
Total households - Female householder- under 18 years

I want the output ...

column1

HOUSEHOLDS  
Total households

column2

Total households - Female householder- under 18 years  
Female householder- under 18 years

Can you add an example of the data? We need that to know on what element to split the data. — Pierre Lapointe, Jun 28 '17 at 19:21
Take a look at these ideas: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33683862/first-entry-from-string-split — Ryan Morton, Jun 28 '17 at 19:22
HOUSEHOLDS- Total households - Female householder- under 18 years ..... is my data.. and i want to split HOUSEHOLDS as 1st column and Total households - Female householder- under 18 years at my 2nd column. — muntasir kabir, Jun 28 '17 at 19:28

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 28 '17 at 20:26

if this is your dataset:

df1<- c("HOUSEHOLDS-Total households - Female householder- under 18 years", "Total households - Female householder- under 18 years")

You can use :

regmatches(df1, regexpr("-", df1), invert = TRUE)
[[1]]
[1] "HOUSEHOLDS-Total households "       "Female householder- under 18 years"

[[2]]
[1] "Total households "                   " Female householder- under 18 years"

The output is a list.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 28 '17 at 20:31

Here's how to do that with separate from tidyr. Basically, you are separating on the first occurrence of "-". The other occurrences are ignored because of extra = "merge".

df <- read.table(text="'HOUSEHOLDS-Total households - Female householder- under 18 years'  
                      'Total households - Female householder- under 18 years'",
                       header=FALSE,stringsAsFactors=FALSE)

library(tidyr)
df %>% separate(V1, into = c('Col1', 'Col2'),  sep="-", extra = "merge").
               Col1                                                  Col2
1        HOUSEHOLDS Total households - Female householder- under 18 years
2 Total households                     Female householder- under 18 years

it works @p lapointe .. thank you.. – muntasir kabir Jun 28 '17 at 20:56 — muntasir kabir, Jun 28 '17 at 20:56

Split one column into two : Column1-1st split and column2-rest in R

column

column1

column2

2 Answers2