data.frame - How to expand a data frame factor column into one column per level in R? -

data.frame - How to expand a data frame factor column into one column per level in R? -

the goal i'm trying accomplish take info frame column factor, create new column each level , populate column appropriate value level original info frame.

here sample. in case, want create new column each level of the.name factor column, so:

original dataframe:

symbol the.name cn sym1 abc 1 sym2 abc 2 sym1 def 3 sym2 def 4

resulting dataframe:

symbol abc def sym1 1 3 sym2 2 4

how can done?

edit: have tried accomplish using sapply loop split column , thenrbinding results. however, have not gotten work , chose not add together question generate noise - i'm pretty sure method not right , can considerably improved.

this reshaping task (from long wide data). bundle reshape2 has great utilities this.

txt="symbol the.name cn sym1 abc 1 sym2 abc 2 sym1 def 3 sym2 def 4" tmp <- read.table(text=txt, header=true) library(reshape2) dcast(tmp, symbol ~ the.name) ## easy

r data.frame calculated-columns