Changing "/" into "\" in R

Question

I need to change "/" into "" in my R code. I have something like this: ``` tmp <- paste(getwd(),"tmp.xls",sep="/") ``` so my `tmp` is `c:/Study/tmp.xls` and I want it to be: `c:\Study	mp.xls` Is it possible to change it in R?

Accepted Answer

Update as per comments.

If this is simply to save the file, then as @sgibb suggested, you are better off using `file.path()`:

```
    file.path(getwd(), "tmp.xls") 
```

Update 2: You want double back-slashes.

tmp is a `string` and if you want to have an actual backslash you need to escape it -- with a backslash. However, when `R` interprets the double slashes (for example, when looking for a file with the path indicated by the string), it will treat the seemingly double slashes as one.

Take a look at what happens when you output the string with `cat()`

```
cat("c:\Study\tmp.xls")
c:\Study	mp.xls
```

The second slash has "disappeared"

Original Answer:

in `R`, `\` is an escape character, thus if you want to print it literally, you need to escape the escape character: `\`. This is what you want to put in your `paste` statement.

You can also use `.Platform$file.sep` as your sep argument, which will make your code much more portable.

```
 tmp <- paste(getwd(),"tmp.xls",sep=.Platform$file.sep)
```

If you already have a string you would like to replace, you can use

```
    gsub("/", "\", tmp, fixed=TRUE)
```

Changing "/" into "\" in R

Solution

Problem