[R] strsplit() and Windows file paths

[Nordlund, Dan (DSHS/RDA)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On
> Behalf Of Nordlund, Dan (DSHS/RDA)
> Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:57 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] strsplit() and Windows file paths
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On
> > Behalf Of Robert Baer
> > Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:40 PM
> > To: r-help at r-project.org
> > Subject: [R] strsplit() and Windows file paths
> >
> > There are two ways to express file paths with the Windows environment:
> > > a=file.choose()
> > > a
> > [1] "C:\\Documents and Settings\\rbaer\\Desktop\\_VNT_Test\\coordFocused 20k
> > F5 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> >
> > and
> >
> > >b= paste(getwd(),"/",dir()[1],sep="")
> > >b
> > [1] "C:/Documents and Settings/rbaer/Desktop/_VNT_Test/coordFocused 20k F5
> > 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> >
> > I have 2 questions:
> >
> > 1.  Is it possible to get file.choose() to use the forward slash rather than the
> escaped
> > back slash.  It would be nice
> > if it were consistent with dir() and getwd()
> 
> Sorry, don't know.
> 
> >
> > 2.  If one has a path string like the escaped backslash pattern shown in 1 above,
> > how does one do a strsplit() on these escaped backslashs?
> >
> 
> Use "\\\\" ?
> 
> > s <- "C:\\Documents and Settings\\rbaer\\Desktop\\_VNT_Test\\coordFocused
> 20k F5 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> > strsplit(s,"\\\\")
> [[1]]
> [1] "C:"
> [2] "Documents and Settings"
> [3] "rbaer"
> [4] "Desktop"
> [5] "_VNT_Test"
> [6] "coordFocused 20k F5 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> 
> > Thanks,
> > Rob
> >
> > ---------------------
> 

It was pointed out to me off-list that it would be easier and faster to use

strsplit(s,"\\",fixed=TRUE)

I will now go back and read ?strsplit more carefully :-).

Dan

Daniel J. Nordlund
Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
Planning, Performance, and Accountability
Research and Data Analysis Division
Olympia, WA  98504-5204