How do I convert matrix columns into separate columns using dplyr?

Question

How do you "unnest" matrix columns in dplyr?

For example, what could I do with the y column to split it into 2 separate columns?

df <- data.frame(x = 1:2)
df$y <- matrix(1:4, ncol = 2)

user_3732271 · Answer

An easiest option is do.call with data.frame

df1 <- do.call(data.frame, df)
str(df1)
#'data.frame':  2 obs. of  3 variables:
# $ x  : int  1 2
# $ y.1: int  1 2
# $ y.2: int  3 4

Or with tidyverse, we can split the 'y' to a list column and then use unnest_wider

library(dplyr)
library(purrr)
df %>%
    mutate(y = asplit(y, 2)) %>% 
    unnest_wider(c(y))