Cleaning raw data

Question

I have a dataset which needs to be cleaned

  1
    *******
    *******
    *******
    *******
      S  H
     HHHHH
        2
    *******
    JSH   K
    *******
    *******
    *******
    *******

This is how it's supposed to look

 ID   a1   a2 a3   a4   a5   a6   a7
1   1    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
2   1    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
3   1    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
4   1    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
5   1 <NA> <NA>  S <NA> <NA>    H <NA>
6   1 <NA>    H  H    H    H    H <NA>
7   2    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
8   2    J    S  H <NA> <NA> <NA>    K
9   2    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
10  2    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
11  2    *    *  *    *    *    *    *
12  2    *    *  *    *    *    *    *

Answer 1

Try this using read.fwf

d <- read.fwf(textConnection(
"    1  
*******
*******
*******
*******
  S  H 
 HHHHH 
    2  
*******
JSH   K
*******
*******
*******
*******"), 
    widths = rep(1, 7),
    na = c(" "),
    stringsAsFactors = FALSE)

id <- as.numeric(d[seq(1, nrow(d), 7), 5])
id <- rep(id, each = 6)

d <- d[seq(1, nrow(d), 7), ]
d <- cbind(id, d)
names(d)[-1] <- paste0("a", 1:7)
d

   id   a1   a2   a3   a4   a5   a6   a7
3   1    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
4   1    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
5   1    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
6   1 <NA> <NA>    S <NA> <NA>    H <NA>
7   1 <NA>    H    H    H    H    H <NA>
8   1 <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA>    2 <NA> <NA>
9   2    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
10  2    J    S    H <NA> <NA> <NA>    K
11  2    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
12  2    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
13  2    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
14  2    *    *    *    *    *    *    *