R help - Oct 2009 - strsplit() and Windows file paths

There are two ways to express file paths with the Windows
environment:
> a=file.choose()
> a
[1] "C:\\Documents and Settings\\rbaer\\Desktop\\_VNT_Test\\coordFocused
20k F5 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"

and
>b= paste(getwd(),"/",dir()[1],sep="")
>b
[1] "C:/Documents and Settings/rbaer/Desktop/_VNT_Test/coordFocused 20k F5
0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"

I have 2 questions:

1.  Is it possible to get file.choose() to use the forward slash rather than the
escaped back slash.  It would be nice
if it were consistent with dir() and getwd()

2.  If one has a path string like the escaped backslash pattern shown in 1
above, how does one do a strsplit() on these escaped backslashs?

Thanks,
Rob

---------------------
Robert W. Baer, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiology
Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicne
A. T. Still University of Health Sciences
800 W. Jefferson St.
Kirksville, MO 63501
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at
r-project.org] On
> Behalf Of Robert Baer
> Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:40 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] strsplit() and Windows file paths
> 
> There are two ways to express file paths with the Windows environment:
> > a=file.choose()
> > a
> [1] "C:\\Documents and
Settings\\rbaer\\Desktop\\_VNT_Test\\coordFocused 20k
> F5 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> 
> and
> 
> >b= paste(getwd(),"/",dir()[1],sep="")
> >b
> [1] "C:/Documents and Settings/rbaer/Desktop/_VNT_Test/coordFocused
20k F5
> 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> 
> I have 2 questions:
> 
> 1.  Is it possible to get file.choose() to use the forward slash rather
than the escaped
> back slash.  It would be nice
> if it were consistent with dir() and getwd()
Sorry, don't know.
> 
> 2.  If one has a path string like the escaped backslash pattern shown in 1
above,
> how does one do a strsplit() on these escaped backslashs?
> 
Use "\\\\" ?
> s <- "C:\\Documents and
Settings\\rbaer\\Desktop\\_VNT_Test\\coordFocused 20k F5 0ng Ki8751
t20.txt"
> strsplit(s,"\\\\")
[[1]]
[1] "C:"                                    
[2] "Documents and Settings"                
[3] "rbaer"                                 
[4] "Desktop"                               
[5] "_VNT_Test"                             
[6] "coordFocused 20k F5 0ng Ki8751 t20.txt"
> Thanks,
> Rob
> 
> ---------------------
Hope this is helpful,

Dan

Daniel J. Nordlund
Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
Planning, Performance, and Accountability
Research and Data Analysis Division
Olympia, WA  98504-5204