How to aggregate Character Data of a data frame based on different column in r

Question

I am new to R. I have a data frame like this:

Category      description

Analysis     This is one
Hybrid       This is two
Other        This is three
Analysis     This is four
Other        This is five
Hybrid       This is six

And I would Like to get description per category in a list form like this:

Category description

Analysis  ("This is one", "This is four")
Hybrid    ("This is two", "This is six")
Other     ("This is five", "This is three")

Answer 1

Does this work:

library(dplyr)
df %>% group_by(Category) %>% 
  mutate(description = str_c('"',description, '"')) %>% 
    summarise(description = str_c('(',toString(description),')'))

`summarise()` ungrouping output (override with `.groups` argument)
# A tibble: 3 x 2
  Category description                            
  <chr>    <chr>                                  
1 Analysis "(\"This is one\", \"This is four\")"  
2 Hybrid   "(\"This is two\", \"This is six\")"   
3 Other    "(\"This is three\", \"This is five\")"

cat(x$description)
("This is one", "This is four") ("This is two", "This is six") ("This is three", "This is five")

Data used:

dput(df)
structure(list(Category = c("Analysis", "Hybrid", "Other", "Analysis", 
"Other", "Hybrid"), description = c("This is one", "This is two", 
"This is three", "This is four", "This is five", "This is six"
)), class = c("spec_tbl_df", "tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"), row.names = c(NA, 
-6L), spec = structure(list(cols = list(Category = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
"collector")), description = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
"collector"))), default = structure(list(), class = c("collector_guess", 
"collector")), skip = 1L), class = "col_spec"))

Answer 2

If you want the data to be in nested lists inside the original data.frame/tibble this would be an option:

library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)
library(data.trable)
# reading in your dummy data
df <- data.table::fread("Category      description
Analysis     'This is one'
Hybrid       'This is two'
Other        'This is three'
Analysis     'This is four'
Other        'This is five'
Hybrid       'This is six'")

res <- df %>% 
  # helper line to prepare de read in data
  tidyr::unite("description", description:V4, sep = " ") %>% 
  # build a grouping you need
  dplyr::group_by(Category) %>% 
  # nest the wanted column to a list
  tidyr::nest(description)

res
# A tibble: 3 x 2
# Groups:   Category [3]
  Category data            
  <chr>    <list>          
1 Analysis <tibble [2 x 1]>
2 Hybrid   <tibble [2 x 1]>
3 Other    <tibble [2 x 1]>

res[2][[1]] 
[[1]]
# A tibble: 2 x 1
   description   
   <chr>         
1 'This is one' 
2 'This is four'

[[2]]
# A tibble: 2 x 1
  description  
  <chr>        
1 'This is two'
2 'This is six'

[[3]]
# A tibble: 2 x 1
  description    
  <chr>          
1 'This is three'
2 'This is five'