Unnest one column list to many columns in tidyr

Question

For example, I have a tidy data frame like this:

df <- tibble(id=1:2,
         ctn=list(list(a="x",b=1),
                  list(a="y",b=2)))
# A tibble: 2 x 2
     id        ctn
  <int>     <list>
1     1 <list [2]>
2     2 <list [2]>

How could I unnest ctn column to the right so that the data frame will be like this:

# A tibble: 2 x 3
     id     a     b
  <int> <chr> <dbl>
1     1     x     1
2     2     y     2

Answer 1

With dplyr and purrr

df %>% 
  mutate(ctn = map(ctn, as_tibble)) %>%
  unnest()

# A tibble: 2 x 3
     id     a     b
  <int> <chr> <dbl>
1     1     x     1
2     2     y     2