title: R: Split Variable Column into multiple (unbalanced) columns by comma
body: <p>I have a dataset of 25 variables and over 2 million observations. One of my variables is a combination of a few different "categories" that I want to split to where it shows 1 category per column (similar to what split would do in stata). For example: </p>
  
  <pre><code># Name      Age     Number               Events                      First 
  # Karen      24        8         Triathlon/IM,Marathon,10k,5k         0
  # Kurt       39        2         Half-Marathon,10k                    0 
  # Leah       18        0                                              1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And I want it to look like: </p>
  
  <pre><code># Name   Age  Number Events_1        Event_2      Events_3     Events_4      First
  # Karen   24    8     Triathlon/IM    Marathon       10k         5k             0
  # Kurt    39    2     Half-Marathon   10k            NA          NA             0 
  # Leah    18    0     NA              NA             NA          NA             1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have looked through stackoverflow but have not found anything that works (everything gives me an error of some sort). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. </p>
  
  <p>Note: May not be important but the largest number of categories 1 person has is 19 therefore I would need to create Event_1:Event_19</p>
  
  <p>Comment: Previous stack overflows have suggested the separate function, however this function does not seem to work with my dataset. When I input the function the program runs but when it is finished nothing is changed, there is no output, and no error code. When I tried to use other suggestions made in other threads I received error messages. However, I finally got it is work by using the cSplit function. Thank for the help!!! </p>