I am new to R, so please forgive me if there is an obvious answer to
this question. I have done fairly extensive searching through R docs,
google and a few R users and have not found an answer to my question.
Is there a way to create a non-interpreted string object in R?
For example, I am using R in a MS Windows environment and I would like
to paste DOS paths into some R command:
setwd("c:\some\directory")
Obviously this does not work because of the escaping mechanism. And I
know the obvious answer, use "\\". But if you do a lot of pasting
into
R it could get tedious manually editing escape sequences.
I did find a workable solution to this particular problem:
setwd(choose.dir())<Enter><Paste><Enter>
This saves me from having to do the editing myself. I can conceive of
other examples of wanting to paste other more abstract stings into R
that may happen to have a \ in it. And now, thanks to choose.dir(), I
have a way to do the translation automagically but...
My question is, is there any way in R to not interpret the string and
store the string as is? For instance, Perl allows you to do interpreted
(" ") and non-interpreted strings (' '). This does not work
in R; ' '
acts just like " " and my testing indicates that the interpretation is
done at parse time. Is there any language level construct for creating
a non-interpreted string in R?
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Enter this at the console x <- scan(what = "") and after pressing the enter after the right paren, do a paste and then press enter twice. On 7/27/06, douglas.stave at wellsfargo.com <douglas.stave at wellsfargo.com> wrote:> I am new to R, so please forgive me if there is an obvious answer to > this question. I have done fairly extensive searching through R docs, > google and a few R users and have not found an answer to my question. > > Is there a way to create a non-interpreted string object in R? > > For example, I am using R in a MS Windows environment and I would like > to paste DOS paths into some R command: > setwd("c:\some\directory") > > Obviously this does not work because of the escaping mechanism. And I > know the obvious answer, use "\\". But if you do a lot of pasting into > R it could get tedious manually editing escape sequences. > > I did find a workable solution to this particular problem: > setwd(choose.dir())<Enter><Paste><Enter> > This saves me from having to do the editing myself. I can conceive of > other examples of wanting to paste other more abstract stings into R > that may happen to have a \ in it. And now, thanks to choose.dir(), I > have a way to do the translation automagically but... > > My question is, is there any way in R to not interpret the string and > store the string as is? For instance, Perl allows you to do interpreted > (" ") and non-interpreted strings (' '). This does not work in R; ' ' > acts just like " " and my testing indicates that the interpretation is > done at parse time. Is there any language level construct for creating > a non-interpreted string in R? > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >
On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, douglas.stave at wellsfargo.com wrote:> I am new to R, so please forgive me if there is an obvious answer to > this question. I have done fairly extensive searching through R docs, > google and a few R users and have not found an answer to my question. > > Is there a way to create a non-interpreted string object in R? > > For example, I am using R in a MS Windows environment and I would like > to paste DOS paths into some R command: > setwd("c:\some\directory") > > Obviously this does not work because of the escaping mechanism. And I > know the obvious answer, use "\\". But if you do a lot of pasting into > R it could get tedious manually editing escape sequences.Why manually edit? You can do this many ways, including with R (reading from a file or from a separate line). E.g.> setwd(readline("new dir: "))new dir: c:\TEMP> getwd()[1] "c:/TEMP"> I did find a workable solution to this particular problem: > setwd(choose.dir())<Enter><Paste><Enter> > This saves me from having to do the editing myself. I can conceive of > other examples of wanting to paste other more abstract stings into R > that may happen to have a \ in it. And now, thanks to choose.dir(), I > have a way to do the translation automagically but... > > My question is, is there any way in R to not interpret the string and > store the string as is? For instance, Perl allows you to do interpreted > (" ") and non-interpreted strings (' '). This does not work in R; ' ' > acts just like " " and my testing indicates that the interpretation is > done at parse time. Is there any language level construct for creating > a non-interpreted string in R?No.> > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.[Please do, not send HTML code and BTW the answer is in the recent list archives.] -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595