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]]
>
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______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
