Splitting string variable into many variables in r

Since you did not provide your data in a form we can reproduce, I made a mock set:

> furn <- c("Upholstery KCDF", "Venetian Beige Leatherette N/C", "Upholstery KCDF", "Venetian Beige Leatherette N/C",  "Accessories Z06", "Black Kidney Grilles 173.00", "Accessories Z06", "Black Kidney Grilles 173")

Then, with the stringi package you can separate words at the spaces and unlist the result as a vector:

> require(string1)

> unlist(stri_split_regex(str = furn, pattern = " "))
 [1] "Upholstery"  "KCDF"        "Venetian"    "Beige"       "Leatherette" "N/C"         "Upholstery"  "KCDF"       
 [9] "Venetian"    "Beige"       "Leatherette" "N/C"         "Accessories" "Z06"         "Black"       "Kidney"     
[17] "Grilles"     "173.00"      "Accessories" "Z06"         "Black"       "Kidney"      "Grilles"     "173"   

You are looking for strsplit

split.var <- strsplit(my.var, " ")

However, this will split at all spaces, so you may have to recode your original data to use a different separator.

This example will help you.

library(base)
a<-"welcome to stack overflow"
b<-strsplit(a," ")
b<-unlist(b)
b1<-as.matrix(a)
a1<-b[1]
a2<-b[2]
a3<-b[3]
a4<-b[4]

If I understand your question correctly: the single string should be formatted in a table as:

       Variable      Var1      var2        var3   var4 
Upholstery KCDF  Venetian     Beige Leatherette    N/C 
Upholstery KCDF  Venetian     Beige Leatherette    N/C  
Accessories Z06     Black    Kidney Grilles     173.00  
Accessories Z06     Black    Kidney Grilles        173

Now, if the data is was in a deliminated file the function read.table should do what you need.

However, if the data is a single string such as:

input <- "Variable Var1 var2 var3 var4 Upholstery KCDF  Venetian Beige Leatherette N/C Upholstery KCDF Venetian Beige Leatherette N/C  Accessories Z06    Black Kidney Grilles 173.00  Accessories Z06  Black Kidney Grilles 173"

Then we have a different problem and a different solution will be needed.