Print " (double quotation) using sprintf in R

Question

How to print " around my text using sprintf in R?

Example:

Name<-"X"
sprintf({"%s"},Name)

which the output is:

[1] "X"

But I need

[1] ""X""

You need `sprintf('"%s"',Name)` Check it with `cat` i.e. `cat(sprintf('"%s"',Name), "\n")` — akrun, Jan 05 '18 at 15:48
@akrun, I need the "sprintf", Since I already made it using "cat" — Ester Silva, Jan 05 '18 at 15:50
@akrun 's point is you can check that `sprintf()` works by testing it with `cat()`, not that you should use `cat()` instead of `sprintf()`. — Len Greski, Jan 05 '18 at 17:07

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 05 '18 at 15:50

2

I think what you want is shQuote You can do

shQuote(Name)
# [1] "\"X\""

Note that R needs to escape the inner quotes in the console. It will not print out something that looks like ""X"". But if you cat the values the slashes aren't there

cat(shQuote(Name))
# "X"

answered Jan 05 '18 at 15:50

MrFlick

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Thanks but No @MrFlick, I want to use the `sprintf` since I need to assign the output of `sprintf` to a variable. So I guess `cat` cannot be useful. Also, `shQuote(Name)` which is not correct. – Ester Silva Jan 05 '18 at 15:57
@EsterSilva That doesn't make sense. you can assign the output of `shQuote` just like you can `sprintf`. What exactly are you trying to do with this value? Can you provide some sort of [reproducible example](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example) that demonstrates why you need to quote this string value so that possible solutions other than what you are expecting can be tested and shown to produce the desired result. – MrFlick Jan 05 '18 at 16:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 05 '18 at 20:04

0

I'm not sure if another option will help you. But you can consider it:

The option could be:

Name<-"X"
#> sprintf("'%s'",Name)
#[1] "'X'"

answered Jan 05 '18 at 20:04

MKR

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Print " (double quotation) using sprintf in R

2 Answers2