Using Characters in String to Create New Variables

Question

Data I'm scrapping off of the web uses the * character to denote one thing and + to denote another.

Here's an example of what it looks like:

# Original Data
original_df <- data.frame(c("Randy Watson*+", "Cleo McDowell*", "Darryl Jenks"))
names(original_df) <- 'nameinfo'

original_df

I want to transform the data to look like this output:

# What I want the Data to look like
name <- c("Randy Watson", "Cleo McDowell", "Darryl Jenks")
this_thing <- c("1", "1", "0")
that_thing <- c("1", "0", "0")
desired_df <- data.frame(name_column, this_thing, that_thing)

desired_df

I basically want to use the prsense of * to denote one flag variable, + for another variable, then remove either * or + from the nameinfo field and use it as a new variable name.

Thanks.

Check out my needleInHaystack function here. Usage would be needleInHaystack(c("*", "+"), original_df$nameinfo). Some cleanup would be required. — A5C1D2H2I1M1N2O1R2T1
– A5C1D2H2I1M1N2O1R2T1, Commented Jul 23, 2014 at 17:29

Tyler Rinker · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-22 17:28:05Z

2

grepl will work well here:

original_df$this_thing <- grepl("\\*", original_df$nameinfo)
original_df$that_thing <- grepl("\\+", original_df$nameinfo)
original_df$nameinfo <- gsub("\\*|\\+", "", original_df$nameinfo)
original_df

##        nameinfo this_thing that_thing
## 1  Randy Watson       TRUE       TRUE
## 2 Cleo McDowell       TRUE      FALSE
## 3  Darryl Jenks      FALSE      FALSE

answered Jul 22, 2014 at 17:28

Tyler Rinker

111k74 gold badges335 silver badges536 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Frank B. Over a year ago

Thanks @Tyler for the help. Any idea how to have it return 1 instead of true and 0 instead of false?

Tyler Rinker Over a year ago

Logicals can be cerced to numeric with as.numeric; try as.numeric(c(T, F)).

A5C1D2H2I1M1N2O1R2T1 Over a year ago

Wouldn't an sapply be useful here?

Tyler Rinker Over a year ago

@AnandaMahto Probably, but for 2 items (columns) I probably wouldn't bother.

lawyeR · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-22 22:25:43Z

0

Here is a different approach, using the character class :punct: and a single gsub call

original_df <- data.frame(c("Randy Watson*+", "Cleo McDowell*", "Darryl Jenks"))
names(original_df) <- 'nameinfo'    
original_df$this_thing <- c("1", "1", "0")
original_df$that_thing <- c("1", "0", "0")
original_df$nameinfo <- gsub("[[:punct:]]", "", original_df$nameinfo)

answered Jul 22, 2014 at 22:25

lawyeR

7,7045 gold badges39 silver badges68 bronze badges

1 Comment

Frank B. Over a year ago

Thanks @lawyeR, the last line is helpful. Unfortunately the main thing for me is the flags of 0/1 or F/T for the two variables.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Using Characters in String to Create New Variables

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related