[R] using paste and "\" to create a valid filename

[Uwe Ligges]

roger bos wrote:

> Sometimes even the easy stuff is difficult (for me)... I want to get
> input from different places to paste together an excel filename (so
> you know I'm using windows) that I can open with RODBC.  I know about
> using double "\" since its an escape character, but I get either 2 or
> none, I can't get just one "\" where I need it.  See example code
> below.  I am using R 2.1.0, but plan to upgrade soon.  Thanks in
> advance to anyone who can help.
> 
> Roger
> 
> 
> rankPath <- "R:\New Ranks\SMC\SMC"				
> rankDate <- "20050819"				
> rankFile <- paste(rankPath,rankDate,".xls", sep="")
> rankFile
> [1] "R:New RanksSMCSMC20050819.xls"
> 
> 
> rankPath <- "R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC"				
> rankDate <- "20050819"				
> rankFile <- paste(rankPath,rankDate,".xls", sep="")
> rankFile
> [1] "R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC20050819.xls"


This is perfect, "\" is *printed* escaped, hence for file access you can 
perfectly use this character vector.

Uwe Ligges


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