Escaping backslash (\) in string or paths in R

Question

Windows copies path with backslash \, which R does not accept. So, I wanted to write a function which would convert \ to /. For example:

chartr0 <- function(foo) chartr('\','\\/',foo)

Then use chartr0 as...

source(chartr0('E:\RStuff\test.r'))

But chartr0 is not working. I guess, I am unable to escape /. I guess escaping / may be important in many other occasions.

Also, is it possible to avoid the use chartr0 every time, but convert all path automatically by creating an environment in R which calls chartr0 or use some kind of temporary use like using options

As Dirk says, with the reason being that forward-slashes do not need to be "escaped". — IRTFM, Jan 06 '13 at 18:59
There is an interesting solution to the windows slash problem here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/12703931/1700987 — MattBagg, Jan 06 '13 at 20:45

Henrik · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-29T17:00:45.193

From R 4.0.0 you can use r"(...)" to write a path as raw string constant, which avoids the need for escaping:

r"(E:\RStuff\test.r)"
# [1] "E:\\RStuff\\test.r"

There is a new syntax for specifying raw character constants similar to the one used in C++: r"(...)" with ... any character sequence not containing the sequence )". This makes it easier to write strings that contain backslashes or both single and double quotes. For more details see ?Quotes.

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 06 '13 at 19:01

Your fundamental problem is that R will signal an error condition as soon as it sees a single back-slash before any character other than a few lower-case letters, backslashes themselves, quotes or some conventions for entering octal, hex or Unicode sequences. That is because the interpreter sees the back-slash as a message to "escape" the usual translation of characters and do something else. If you want a single back-slash in your character element you need to type 2 backslashes. That will create one backslash:

nchar("\\")
#[1] 1

The "Character vectors" section of _Intro_to_R_ says:

"Character strings are entered using either matching double (") or single (') quotes, but are printed using double quotes (or sometimes without quotes). They use C-style escape sequences, using \ as the escape character, so \ is entered and printed as \, and inside double quotes " is entered as \". Other useful escape sequences are \n, newline, \t, tab and \b, backspace—see ?Quotes for a full list."

 ?Quotes

Dieter Menne · Answer 3 · 2013-01-15T11:09:27.373

3

chartr0 <- function(foo) chartr('\\','/',foo)
chartr0('E:\\RStuff\\test.r')

You cannot write E:\Rxxxx, because R believes R is escaped.

edited Jan 15 '13 at 11:09

answered Jan 06 '13 at 18:32

Dieter Menne

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This would work just as well: `chartr0 <- function(foo) chartr('\\','/',foo)` – Josh O'Brien Jan 06 '13 at 18:42

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 06 '13 at 18:54

0

The problem is that every single forward slash and backslash in your code is escaped incorrectly, resulting in either an invalid string or the wrong string being used. You need to read up on which characters need to be escaped and how. Take a look at the list of escape sequences in the link below. Anything not listed there (such as the forward slash) is treated literally and does not require any escaping.

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-lang.html#Literal-constants

answered Jan 06 '13 at 18:54

Ryan C. Thompson

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It is true that the backslashes were not entered correctly but I do not understand the statement that the forward-slashes were escaped incorrectly. – IRTFM Jan 06 '13 at 19:12
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in `chartr('\','\\/',foo)`, it appears that the `'\\/'` was an attempt to escape the forward slash with an escaped backslash. Perhaps that is an incorrect assumption, but in any case `'\\/'` is clearly a wrong input for `chartr`. – Ryan C. Thompson Jan 06 '13 at 19:59
It was not the '\\/' that caused the error but rather the `'\','` sequence. – IRTFM Jan 06 '13 at 20:11

Escaping backslash (\) in string or paths in R

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