How do I split a column of factors into multiple columns of multiple factors?

Question

Say I have a data frame that looks like this:

Factor     Value
======     =====
1A.In      1.0
1A.Out     2.6
1B.In      0.5
1B.Out     3.4
2A.In      5.5

etc.

My goal is to add columns to the data frame that extract information from the single Factor column, as such:

Factor   Value   Fact1     Fact2     Fact3
======   =====   =====     =====     =====
1A.In    1.0     1         A         In  
1A.Out   2.6     1         A         Out
1B.In    0.5     1         B         In
1B.Out   3.4     1         B         Out
2A.In    5.5     2         A         In

I just cannot figure out how to do this without using subset ad nauseum. I'm relatively new to R, and don't have a background in programming, so any advice would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

See ?substr.

within(df, {
    Fact1 <- substr(Factor, 1, 1)
    Fact2 <- substr(Factor, 2, 2)
    Fact3 <- substr(Factor, 4, 999)
})

I'm making assumptions here about how many characters to use for each new variable. For more generality, you should have some kind of regular structure in Factor, eg dots as separators for all your variables.