Remove duplicates in string

Question

I have the following data set

df <- data.frame(
    path = c(\"a,b,a\", 
        \"(direct) / (none),   (direct) / (none), google / cpc,    google / cpc\"         


        

Answer 1

Basic logic behind below code :

i)split each row on "," , (ii) remove whitespace (iii) take unique values
(iv) collapse back on "," and paste

t = apply(df, 1, function(x) paste0(unique(trimws(unlist(strsplit(x,",")))), collapse = ","))
df=data.frame(t)
# df
#                               t
#1                            a,b
#2 (direct) / (none),google / cpc
#3                            f,d
#4                            a,c