R help - Nov 2006 - escape character to get " printed in output

I want to use R to run dos commands (either by create batch files or
using shell())and I need to write double quotes on the file (or shell
command).  As an easier example, lets take:
> print("hello 'hello' hello")
[1] "hello 'hello' hello"

Lets say instead of the above, I wanted:
"hello "hello" hello"
If possible, how would I do that?

I understand that \ is an escape character, so I tried:
> print("hello \"hello\" hello")
[1] "hello \"hello\" hello"

But that did not work.

TIA, Roger

It did work.  That's how print represents strings.

Try:
> cat("hello \"hello\" hello")
hello "hello" hello>
> strsplit("hello \"hello\" hello", "")[[1]]
 [1] "h"  "e"  "l"  "l"  "o" 
" "  "\"" "h"  "e"  "l" 
"l"  "o"  "\"" " "  "h"
[16] "e"  "l"  "l"  "o"

On 11/30/06, roger bos <roger.bos at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I want to use R to run dos commands (either by create batch files or
> using shell())and I need to write double quotes on the file (or shell
> command).  As an easier example, lets take:
>
> > print("hello 'hello' hello")
> [1] "hello 'hello' hello"
>
> Lets say instead of the above, I wanted:
> "hello "hello" hello"
> If possible, how would I do that?
>
> I understand that \ is an escape character, so I tried:
>
> > print("hello \"hello\" hello")
> [1] "hello \"hello\" hello"
>
> But that did not work.
>
> TIA, Roger
>
> ______________________________________________
> 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, 2006-11-30 at 15:05 -0500, roger bos wrote:
> I want to use R to run dos commands (either by create batch files or
> using shell())and I need to write double quotes on the file (or shell
> command).  As an easier example, lets take:
> 
> > print("hello 'hello' hello")
> [1] "hello 'hello' hello"
> 
> Lets say instead of the above, I wanted:
> "hello "hello" hello"
> If possible, how would I do that?
> 
> I understand that \ is an escape character, so I tried:
> 
> > print("hello \"hello\" hello")
> [1] "hello \"hello\" hello"
> 
> But that did not work.
> 
> TIA, Roger
Roger,

Don't use print(), use cat() so that the escaped characters are properly
interpreted:
> cat("hello \"hello\" hello\n")
hello "hello" hello
> 

See ?cat

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

Gabor & Marc,

Yes, you are right.  Thanks for clarifying that for me.  I should have
tested it fully before hand.

Thanks,

Roger 

-----Original Message-----
From: Gabor Grothendieck [mailto:ggrothendieck at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:12 PM
To: roger bos
Cc: RHelp
Subject: Re: [R] escape character to get " printed in output

It did work.  That's how print represents strings.

Try:
> cat("hello \"hello\" hello")
hello "hello" hello>
> strsplit("hello \"hello\" hello", "")[[1]]
 [1] "h"  "e"  "l"  "l"  "o" 
" "  "\"" "h"  "e"  "l" 
"l"  "o"  "\"" "
"  "h"
[16] "e"  "l"  "l"  "o"

On 11/30/06, roger bos <roger.bos at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I want to use R to run dos commands (either by create batch files or 
> using shell())and I need to write double quotes on the file (or shell 
> command).  As an easier example, lets take:
>
> > print("hello 'hello' hello")
> [1] "hello 'hello' hello"
>
> Lets say instead of the above, I wanted:
> "hello "hello" hello"
> If possible, how would I do that?
>
> I understand that \ is an escape character, so I tried:
>
> > print("hello \"hello\" hello")
> [1] "hello \"hello\" hello"
>
> But that did not work.
>
> TIA, Roger
>
> ______________________________________________
> 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.
>
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