Split data frame string column into multiple columns

Another option is to use the new tidyr package.

library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)

before <- data.frame(
  attr = c(1, 30 ,4 ,6 ), 
  type = c('foo_and_bar', 'foo_and_bar_2')
)

before %>%
  separate(type, c("foo", "bar"), "_and_")

##   attr foo   bar
## 1    1 foo   bar
## 2   30 foo bar_2
## 3    4 foo   bar
## 4    6 foo bar_2