[R] parsing files with "\" character

[Jeff Newmiller]

The principles of regex are basically the same between R and those other languages, so I don't see why you would switch... but if you did, asking here would be inappropriate.

I think the short answer is yes, but can't be specific without a reproducible example. ([1] is recommended but not required.)

Keep in mind that R has a syntax for strings that uses \ for escaping the following character. Thus, "\\" is a single-character string with a backslash in it. However, grep also uses backslash for escaping, so if you want to search for a single backslash in a target string then grep needs two backslashes, but each of those has to be escaped in an R string so you would use four backslashes in R source code strings to match one in the target.

[1] package reprex

On August 26, 2019 10:56:24 PM PDT, April Ettington <aprilettington using gmail.com> wrote:
>Is there any way to parse files that include the \ character in a
>string?
>
>When I try to use grep to extract strings with a pattern that includes
>"\"
>it fails.
>
>If there is no way to do it with R, is it possible with python or a
>bash
>script?
>
>Thank you,
>
>April
>
>	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.