Assuming you are starting with:
df <- data.frame(v1 = c("Ab B C", "", "X C", "N Ab F S"))
You can try cSplit_e
from my “splitstackshape” package:
library(splitstackshape)
cSplit_e(df, "v1", sep = " ", type = "character", fill = 0)
# v1 v1_Ab v1_B v1_C v1_F v1_N v1_S v1_X
# 1 Ab B C 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
# 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
# 3 X C 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
# 4 N Ab F S 1 0 0 1 1 1 0