How can a data.frame with only one column be divided into several columns in R?

edit

One way to divide a data frame with only one column into several columns in R is to use functions like separate() or tidyr::extract().

For example, let's say we have a data frame df that contains only one column "Name" with values like "John Doe", "Sara Smith", and "Mike Johnson". We want to split this into two columns "FirstName" and "LastName".

We can use tidyr::separate() function as follows:

library(tidyr)

df_new <- separate(df, Name, into = c("First_Name", "Last_Name"), sep = " ")

This will create a new data frame df_new with two columns "FirstName" and "LastName" containing the separated values.

Alternatively, we can use tidyr::extract() function as follows:

df_new <- extract(df, Name, into = c("First_Name", "Last_Name"), regex = "^(\\S+)\\s+(\\S+)$")

This will create a new data frame df_new with two columns "FirstName" and "LastName" containing the extracted values using a regular expression.

Note that in both cases, we need to specify the column to be separated or extracted, and the names of the new columns to be created.