[R] gsub and "\"

[(Ted Harding)]

On 09-Jul-08 15:49:54, Sean Davis wrote:
> This is hopefully a simple question.  I am trying to escape single
> quotes like so:
> 
> abc's   >> abc\'s
> 
> However, I cannot find an easy way to do that with gsub:
> 
> gsub("'","\\\\'","abc's")
># returns "abc\\'s"
> 
> How can I get a single \ in the output?
> 
> Thanks,
> Sean

In terms of the internal representation, I think you have in fact
got what you want. It's just that when it's prented on the screen,
the internal "\" is printed as "\\":

  nchar("abc\\'s")
  # [1] 6

  nchar("abc's")
  # [1] 5

Quite how you get it to be displayed as "abc\'s" is another matter,
and I don't have an answer to it!

Ted.

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Date: 09-Jul-08                                       Time: 17:06:40
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