? backslash was Re: [R] Editor alternative

[Yves Gauvreau]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Uwe Ligges" <ligges at statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
To: "Yves Gauvreau" <cyg at sympatico.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 7:19 AM
Subject: Re: ? backslash was Re: [R] Editor alternative


> Yves Gauvreau wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > I just want to point out an observation. I noticed that path strings
under
> > Windows required that I double up the backslash "\" as it is used as an
> > escape character as in C. I think that most if not all of the "Unix
tools"
> > ported to Windows accept path strings with a single backslash. I wonder
if
> > it would be worthwhile to reproduce that behavior under R somehow? I
mean
> > kind of preprocessing the params used as path strings transparently
since
> > character vectors don't "escape" the backslash.
> >
> > I understand it is much easier to require from users of R under Windows
to
> > comply with it's path strings needs. Maybe it would be nice to just
provide
> > a simple function in "base" for the sole purpose of translating Windows
path
> > strings to the required form.
>
> I don't think, it is necessary. It is not so difficult to use "/" or
> "\\" instead of "\" ...
>
> Uwe Ligges

I agree when you have a single path string to process it's ain't worth the
trouble but what about situations where say you make use of a large number
of Windows path string stored in a file or anywhere else and you want to
process each of the files the path string points to? I think a more generic
solution might be appropriate. Of course if no one as the need to process a
large number of files in various directory on it's file system under Windows
then this thread is dead in the water. Also if the number of people with
such needs is small they probably already have implemented a solution to
their problem.

I just though that a function in base for such problem would have been a
nice consideration to us Windows users. No offence intended to the rest of
the world.

Yves Gauvreau



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