library(tidyverse)
fruit %>%
as_tibble() %>%
transmute(fruit = value, fruit.abr = substring(value, 1, sample(3:6, 1)))
#> # A tibble: 80 x 2
#> fruit fruit.abr
#> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 apple app
#> 2 apricot apr
#> 3 avocado avo
#> 4 banana ban
#> 5 bell pepper bel
#> 6 bilberry bil
#> 7 blackberry bla
#> 8 blackcurrant bla
#> 9 blood orange blo
#> 10 blueberry blu
#> # ... with 70 more rows
I'd like my abbreviated fruit column to be a random string length between 3 and 6 characters. Each row would be a different string length (between 3 and 6).
The way I wrote my code a sample between 3 and 6 is chosen once, and then used for every row. How do I "recycle" or "loop" this sample() function to make it select a new value for each row (eg 3, 6, 4, 3, 5, etc.)?
sample(3:6, 1) returns a single value and will be recycled to the length of rows. You should draw a sample with the same size as the number of rows at a time. Remember to set replace = TRUE to take a sample with replacement.
fruit %>%
as_tibble() %>%
transmute(fruit = value, fruit.abr = substring(value, 1, sample(3:6, n(), TRUE)))
# # A tibble: 10 x 2
# fruit fruit.abr
# <chr> <chr>
# 1 apple "app"
# 2 apricot "apr"
# 3 avocado "avoca"
# 4 banana "banana"
# 5 bell pepper "bell "
# 6 bilberry "bilbe"
# 7 blackberry "blac"
# 8 blackcurrant "blac"
# 9 blood orange "blo"
# 10 blueberry "blu"
Data
fruit <- structure(list(value = c("apple", "apricot", "avocado", "banana",
"bell pepper", "bilberry", "blackberry", "blackcurrant", "blood orange",
"blueberry")), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA, -10L))