Create new columns and change names

[DaphneLM]

I have some data from a FACS (fluorescent activated cell sorting) experiment that I want to analyze using R. The problem is that the FACS software has a weird output and basically puts all the characteristics in one column with a "-" in between them.
Example:
clone 9_+b_004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green
clone 9_+T_004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green
clone 10_+b_004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green
and so on

What I need for my analysis are new columns. For example a column named "Clone" with a variable "clone 9" if there is clone 9 in the original column, or "clone 10" if there is clone 10 in the original column. And also a column "Added compound" with variables such as "TGFb" if there's "+b" in the original column, and "Tamoxifen" if there is "+T" etc...

The problem is that I have no idea how to create those columns. I've tried several different codes and combinations (grepl, replace, mutate, to name a few) but nothing has worked so far. Because I need multiple new columns, I can't just replace the original column without duplicating.

Any help or ideas are much appreciated.

[andresrcs]

You can do something like this

library(tidyverse)

sample_df <- data.frame(
    stringsAsFactors = FALSE,
    original_column = c(
        "clone 9_+b_004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green",
        "clone 9_+T_004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green",
        "clone 10_+b_004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green"
    )
)

sample_df %>% 
    separate(original_column,
             into = c("clone", "added_compound", "other_column"),
             sep = "_") %>% 
    mutate(added_compound = case_when(
        added_compound == "+b" ~ "TGFb",
        added_compound == "+T" ~ "Tamoxifen"
    ))
#>      clone added_compound                       other_column
#> 1  clone 9           TGFb 004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green
#> 2  clone 9      Tamoxifen 004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green
#> 3 clone 10           TGFb 004.fcs/Single cells/red vs. green

^{Created on 2020-03-08 by the reprex package (v0.3.0.9001)}

If this doesn't solve your issue, please provide a proper REPRoducible EXample (reprex) illustrating your issue.

[dromano]

Hi @DaphneLM, if you could post a small sample of your data (a table of at most 50 rows, and maybe 6-10 columns), that would be very helpful -- is your data in a data frame?

[DaphneLM]

Thank you for your answer! This solved my problem perfectly. It hadn't occurred to me to use the separate in combination with mutate. Thank you!

[andresrcs]

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