Create character strings with a certain length from a data frame

tidyverse
1

Hey,
i wanna create character strings from a data_frame with a certain length, lets say nchar = 25.
for instance:

i have a data frame:

# A tibble: 8,025 x 1
   type     
   <chr>     
 1 G8920      
 2 G7769         
 3 G7720      
 4 G7722     
 5 G8920      
 6 G5434     
 7 G7652
 8 G7547
 9 G7644
10 G5535
# ... with 8,015 more rows

and from this data frame i want to produce character strings with a maximum length of 25 character as follows:

"G8920 G7769 G7720 G7722"
"G8920 G5434 G7652 G7547"
"G7644 G5535 ... "

and so on, until every row entry is used up.

every help is appreciated, thanks!

2

Could you please turn this into a self-contained reprex (short for reproducible example)? It will help us help you if we can be sure we're all working with/looking at the same stuff.

install.reprex("reprex")

If you've never heard of a reprex before, you might want to start by reading the tidyverse.org help page. The reprex dos and don'ts are also useful.

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reprex::reprex(input = "fruits_stringdist.R", outfile = "fruits_stringdist.md")

For pointers specific to the community site, check out the reprex FAQ, linked to below.

3

Hello,

It's important, as Mara pointed out, that you could turn your questions into self-contained reprex.

If I understood correctly, maybe this piece of code could point you in the right direction:

library(dplyr)

x <- data.frame(
  col1 = c("G8920","G7769","G7720","G7722","G8920","G5434","G7652","G7547","G7644","G5535")
  )

x %>%
  mutate(col2 = paste(head(col1), lead(col1,1), lead(col1,2), lead(col1,3))) %>%
  slice(seq(1,n(),4)) %>%
  select(col2)
#> # A tibble: 3 x 1
#>   col2                   
#>   <chr>                  
#> 1 G8920 G7769 G7720 G7722
#> 2 G8920 G5434 G7652 G7547
#> 3 G7720 G5535 NA NA

You're going to have problems with the last rows as you don't have "next strings to concatenate". Also, I'm fixing the length to 4 strings or less.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

1 Like