[R] Backslash in paste() function

[Stefan Petersson]

Hi,

I'm trying to build a vector of latex commands. However, I need the command strings to begin with a backslash "\". I have:

test <- c('foo','bar')

and I need to rebuild the array, encapsulating the text items with latex stuff, like this:

paste("\parbox[b]{3cm}{", test, "}", fill=TRUE)

Actually, cat() prints the string fine if one uses double backslashes. However, I can't save the result from cat() back to a vector. And when I use cat() inside the latex function from the Hmisc package, I only get errors... The (not so) funny thing is that I can use paste() on a few latex commands. So if I needed to make the strings bold, the following works:

paste("\bfseries{", test, "}")

I've read the R FAQ 7.37, but it only deals with cat(). Not paste. Or I just didn't get it :o/

Is there a way to paste() the backslash character?

> sessionInfo()
R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31) 
i486-pc-linux-gnu 

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8       LC_NUMERIC=C             
 [3] LC_TIME=en_US.utf8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.utf8    
 [5] LC_MONETARY=C             LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.utf8       LC_NAME=C                
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C              LC_TELEPHONE=C           
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C      

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
>