How to give names to the inner columns in a matrix column?

[jhp]

How do I give names to the columns in a matrix column so that unnest_wider doesn't output a message?

df <- data.frame(x = 1:2)
df$y <- matrix(1:6, ncol = 3)

df <- df %>% 
  rowwise() %>% 
  summarise(y = list(y))

df %>%
  mutate(y = asplit(y, 1)) %>% 
  unnest_wider(c(y))

Similar question to: How to handle lack of names with unnest_wider()

[courtiol]

Same as for any matrix:

df <- data.frame(x = 1:2)
df$y <- matrix(1:6, ncol = 3)
colnames(df$y) <- letters[1:3]

df %>%
  mutate(y = asplit(y, 1)) %>% 
  unnest_wider(y)

[jhp]

Do you know any other ways of thinking of thinking about this question? In my real data when I try this approach I get the error

Error in `colnames<-`(`*tmp*`, value = c("agent_rating_comb1", "agent_rating_comb2",  : 
  attempt to set 'colnames' on an object with less than two dimensions

edit: i think this is because my matrix's are nested in a list column, so I've edited the question. My bad.

[courtiol]

Could you post a reprex (minimal reproducible example)?

The code I have showed you works, so there must be something special about you are doing.

Also the whole approach is quite strange (adding a matrix to a df to turn it into a list and then to columns) and if provided with a little more context, perhaps me or someone else could indeed propose a very different way to tackle your issue.

For example, why don't you first convert the matrix into a data.frame to begin with and then column-bind the 2 data.frames?