Split columns by number in a dataframe

Question

I'm trying to separate a column in a rather untidy dataframe.

section
View 500
V458
453

And I want to create a new column from this. With the preferred output like below.

section  section numbers  
View     500
V        458
         453

I've been trying to research it but I'm having a time with it. I can separate them in the case of the first row, because I can use regex like this.

df_split <- separate(df, col = section, into = c("section", "section_number"), sep = " +[1-9]")

But I can't seem to find a way to use an "or" type statement. If anyone has any input that would be wonderful.

Answer 1

Using a simple gsub would be a choice for me:

section <- c('View 500', 'V458', '453')

cbind(section = trimws(gsub('[0-9]', '', section)), 
      section_numbers = trimws(gsub('[a-zA-Z]', '', section)))

I use trimws to just remove any unwanted white spaces.

Output:

    section section_numbers
[1,] "View"  "500"          
[2,] "V"     "458"          
[3,] ""      "453" 

Answer 2

You can use tidyr for this:

tidyr::extract(df,section, c("section", "section number"), 
               regex="([[:alpha:]]*)[[:space:]]*([[:digit:]]*)")
  section section number
1    View            500
2       V            458
3                    453