Hi, You could try: dat2<- read.table(text=' Respondent, Question1 1, "1,4,7" 2, "2,7,5" 3, "6,3,5" 4, "" ',sep=",",header=TRUE,stringsAsFactors=FALSE) library(stringr) dat2New<-cbind(dat2,do.call(rbind,lapply( str_split(str_trim(dat2[,2]),","),as.numeric))) colnames(dat2New)[3:5]<- paste("Q1",colnames(dat2New)[3:5],sep=".") dat2New # Respondent Question1 Q1.1 Q1.2 Q1.3 #1 1 1,4,7 1 4 7 #2 2 2,7,5 2 7 5 #3 3 6,3,5 6 3 5 #4 4 NA NA NA A.K.
----- Original Message ----- From: Walter Anderson <wandrso...@gmail.com> To: r-help@r-project.org Cc: Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 12:17 PM Subject: [R] How to store and manipulate survey data like this? I have to process a set of survey data with questions that are formatted like this; 1) Pick your top three breeds (pick 3) 1 Rottweiler 2 Pit Bull 3 German Shepard 4 Poodle 5 Border Collie 6 Dalmation 7 Mixed Breed and the answers are formatted like this: Respondent, Question1 1, "1,4,7" 2, "2,7,5" 3, "6,3,5" 4, "" ... Any suggestions on how to preprocess the file to be able to do things like frequency analysis for breeds? ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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.