How to turn around strings in dataframe - r

Question

I have a name, something like Robin the Bruyne or Victor from the Loo
These names are in a dataframe in my session. I need to change these names into:
<lastname, firstname middlename(s)>,
so they are turn arouned. But I don't know how to do this.
I know I can use things like separate() or map() with PURR (of tidyverse).
Data:
~nr, ~name, ~prodno,
2019001, "Piet de Boer", "lux_zwez",
2019002, "Elly Hamstra", "zuv_vla",
2019003, "Sue Ellen Schilder", "zuv_vla",
2019004, "Truus Janssen", "zuv_vmlk",
2019005, "Evelijne de Vries", "lux_zwez",
2019006, "Berend Boersma", "lux_gras",
2019007, "Marius van Asten", "zuv_vla",
2019008, "Corneel Jansen", "lux_gras",
2019009, "Joke Timmerman", "zuv_vla",
2019010, "Jan Willem de Jong", "lux_zwez",
2019011, "Frederik Janssen", "zuv_vmlk",
2019012, "Antonia de Jongh", "zuv_vmlk",
2019013, "Lena van der Loo", "zuv_qrk",
2019014, "Johanna Haanstra", "lux_gras"

Answer 1

We can try using sub here:
names <- c("Robin the Bruyne", "Victor from the Loo")
output <- sub("^(.*) ([A-Z][a-z]+)$", "\\2, \\1", names)
output
[1] "Bruyne, Robin the" "Loo, Victor from the"
This approach uses the following pattern:
^(.*) capture everything from the start until the last space
([A-Z][a-z]+)$ capture the last name, which starts with a capital
Then, we replace with the last name and first/middle names swapped, separated by a comma.

Answer 2

If I understood you correctly, this should work.
dat = tibble::tribble(
~nr, ~name, ~prodno,
2019001, "Piet de Boer", "lux_zwez",
2019002, "Elly Hamstra", "zuv_vla",
2019003, "Sue Ellen Schilder", "zuv_vla",
2019004, "Truus Janssen", "zuv_vmlk",
2019005, "Evelijne de Vries", "lux_zwez",
2019006, "Berend Boersma", "lux_gras",
2019007, "Marius van Asten", "zuv_vla",
2019008, "Corneel Jansen", "lux_gras",
2019009, "Joke Timmerman", "zuv_vla",
2019010, "Jan Willem de Jong", "lux_zwez",
2019011, "Frederik Janssen", "zuv_vmlk",
2019012, "Antonia de Jongh", "zuv_vmlk",
2019013, "Lena van der Loo", "zuv_qrk",
2019014, "Johanna Haanstra", "lux_gras"
)
library(magrittr)
dat %>% dplyr::mutate(
lastname = stringr::str_extract(name,"(?<=[:blank:])[:alnum:]+$"),
firstname = stringr::str_extract(name,".*(?=[:blank:])"),
name = paste(lastname,firstname,sep = ", ")
) %>% dplyr::select(-firstname,-lastname)
#> # A tibble: 14 x 3
#> nr name prodno
#> <dbl> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 2019001 Boer, Piet de lux_zwez
#> 2 2019002 Hamstra, Elly zuv_vla
#> 3 2019003 Schilder, Sue Ellen zuv_vla
#> 4 2019004 Janssen, Truus zuv_vmlk
#> 5 2019005 Vries, Evelijne de lux_zwez
#> 6 2019006 Boersma, Berend lux_gras
#> 7 2019007 Asten, Marius van zuv_vla
#> 8 2019008 Jansen, Corneel lux_gras
#> 9 2019009 Timmerman, Joke zuv_vla
#> 10 2019010 Jong, Jan Willem de lux_zwez
#> 11 2019011 Janssen, Frederik zuv_vmlk
#> 12 2019012 Jongh, Antonia de zuv_vmlk
#> 13 2019013 Loo, Lena van der zuv_qrk
#> 14 2019014 Haanstra, Johanna lux_gras
Created on 2019-06-02 by the reprex package (v0.2.1)