string array to data frame conversion in r

Question

I have got this array in a string variable (k) and would like to convert it to a dataframe in r. The as.array(k) does not convert it. What is the best way to do this. Also, considering that there will be nested arrays in the future to be dealt with.

places = [[\"Abtenau\", \"Abtenau\", 767, 52, 3.0000],[\"Achenkirch\", \"Achenkirch am Achensee\", 248, 61, 6.0000],[\"Adelharz\", \"Adelharz\", 47, 46, 2.0000],[\"Alpbach\", \"Alpbachtal\", 2629, 89, 2.0000]]

Answer 1

An option would be jsonlite to convert to a matrix , then change it to data.frame and retype

library(jsonlite)
library(hablar)
library(dplyr)
fromJSON(places) %>% 
     as.data.frame %>% 
     retype
# A tibble: 4 x 5
#  V1         V2                        V3    V4    V5
#  <chr>      <chr>                  <int> <int> <int>
#1 Abtenau    Abtenau                  767    52     3
#2 Achenkirch Achenkirch am Achensee   248    61     6
#3 Adelharz   Adelharz                  47    46     2
#4 Alpbach    Alpbachtal              2629    89     2

---

Or this can be done with base R after removing the square brackets with regex

read.csv(text = gsub('[][]|"', "", gsub("(?<=\\]),(?=\\[)", "\n",
  places, perl = TRUE)), header = FALSE, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
#          V1                      V2   V3 V4 V5
#1    Abtenau                 Abtenau  767 52  3
#2 Achenkirch  Achenkirch am Achensee  248 61  6
#3   Adelharz                Adelharz   47 46  2
#4    Alpbach              Alpbachtal 2629 89  2

data

places <- "[[\"Abtenau\", \"Abtenau\", 767, 52, 3.0000],[\"Achenkirch\", \"Achenkirch am Achensee\", 248, 61, 6.0000],[\"Adelharz\", \"Adelharz\", 47, 46, 2.0000],[\"Alpbach\", \"Alpbachtal\", 2629, 89, 2.0000]]"