R devel - Feb 2012 - Replace back slashes with forward slashes?

Hello, All:


       What can people tell me about converting back slashes to forward 
slashes in character strings?


       Several years ago, Prof. Ripley provided a solution, which I lost 
and have not been able to find.


       Below please find a function to do this.  I do not find this very 
satisfactory, however, because it uses "scan" and therefore operates
on
an input not a character string.  Unless someone suggests something 
better, I plan to add this to the "sos" package and issue a new
release
very soon.  (The new release is needed, because the RSiteSearch 
capability has been modified in a way that breaks the current "findFn"
core of "sos".)


       Thanks,
       Spencer

back2forwardslash <- function (nmax = 1, pattern = "\\",
replacement =
"/") {
     x <- scan(what = character(), quote = pattern, nmax = nmax)
     x. <- gsub(pattern, replacement, x, fixed = TRUE)
     paste(x., collapse = " ")
}

(x <- back2forwardslash())
c:\Users\

# nmax must be one more than the number of embedded blanks
(x3 <- back2forwardslash(3))
c:\u\a b\c d


-- 
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San Jos?, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567
web:  www.structuremonitoring.com

On Feb 29, 2012, at 12:37 PM, Spencer Graves wrote:
> Hello, All:
> 
> 
>      What can people tell me about converting back slashes to forward
slashes in character strings?
> 
> 
That's it's trivially done with

gsub("\\", "/", x, fixed=TRUE)

Where x is the character string (and I suppose you are aware of it since you are
using it below).

The rest of this e-mail makes absolutely no sense to me -- what exactly are you
taking about? What else do you want to achieve?

Cheers,
Simon





>      Several years ago, Prof. Ripley provided a solution, which I lost and
have not been able to find.
> 
> 
>      Below please find a function to do this.  I do not find this very
satisfactory, however, because it uses "scan" and therefore operates
on an input not a character string.  Unless someone suggests something better, I
plan to add this to the "sos" package and issue a new release very
soon.  (The new release is needed, because the RSiteSearch capability has been
modified in a way that breaks the current "findFn" core of
"sos".)
> 
> 
>      Thanks,
>      Spencer
> 
> back2forwardslash <- function (nmax = 1, pattern = "\\",
replacement = "/") {
>    x <- scan(what = character(), quote = pattern, nmax = nmax)
>    x. <- gsub(pattern, replacement, x, fixed = TRUE)
>    paste(x., collapse = " ")
> }
> 
> (x <- back2forwardslash())
> c:\Users\
> 
> # nmax must be one more than the number of embedded blanks
> (x3 <- back2forwardslash(3))
> c:\u\a b\c d
> 
> 
> -- 
> Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
> President and Chief Technology Officer
> Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
> 751 Emerson Ct.
> San Jos?, CA 95126
> ph:  408-655-4567
> web:  www.structuremonitoring.com
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
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> 
>