Splitting complex string between symbols R - r

Question

I have a dataset full of IDs and qualification strings. My issue with this is two fold;
How to deal with splits between different symbols and,
how to iterate output down a dataframe whilst retaining an ID.
ID <- c(1,2,3)
Qualstring <- c("LE:Science = 45 Distinctions",
"A:Chemistry = A A:Biology = A A:Mathematics = A",
"A:Biology = A A:Chemistry = A A:Mathematics = A B:Baccalaureate Advanced Diploma = Pass"
)
s <- data.frame(ID, Qualstring)
The desired output would be:
ID Qualification Subject Grade
1 1 LE: Science 45 Distinctions
2 2 A: Chemistry A
3 2 A: Biology A
4 2 A: Mathematics A
5 3 A: Biology A
6 3 A: Chemistry A
7 3 A: Mathematics A
8 3 WB: Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Diploma Pass
The commonality of the splits is the ":" and "=", and the codes/words around those.
Looking at the problem from my perspective, it appears complex and whether a continued fudge in excel is ultimately the way to go for this structure of data. Would love to know otherwise if there are any recommendations or direction.

Answer 1

A solution using data.table and stringr. The use of data.table is just for my personal convenience, you could use data.frame with do.call(rbind,.) instead of rbindlist()
library(stringr)
qual <- str_extract_all(s$Qualstring,"[A-Z]+(?=\\:)")
subject <- str_extract_all(s$Qualstring,"(?<=\\:)[\\w ]+")
grade <- str_extract_all(s$Qualstring,"(?<=\\= )[A-z0-9]+")
library(data.table)
df <- lapply(seq(s$ID),function(i){
N = length(qual[[i]])
data.table(ID = rep(s[i,"ID"],N),
Qualification = qual[[i]],
Subject = subject[[i]],
Grade = grade[[i]]
)
}) %>% rbindlist()
ID Qualification Subject Grade
1: 1 LE Science 45
2: 2 A Chemistry A
3: 2 A Biology A
4: 2 A Mathematics A
5: 3 A Biology A
6: 3 A Chemistry A
7: 3 A Mathematics A
8: 3 B Baccalaureate Advanced Diploma Pass
In short, I use positive look behind (?<=) and positive look ahead (?=). [A-Z]+ is for a group of upper letters, [\\w ]+ for a group of words and spaces, [A-z0-9]+ for letters (up and low cases) and numbers. string_extract_all gives a list with all the match on each cell of the character vector tested.