Ignore escape characters (backslashes) in R strings

escaping, r, spss, string

Solution

You can try to use the 'allowEscapes' argument in scan()

X=scan(what="character",allowEscapes=F)
C:\Users\mhermans\somefile.csv

print(X)
[1] "C:\\Users\\mhermans\\somefile.csv"

Problem

While running an R-plugin in SPSS, I receive a Windows path string as input e.g. ``` 'C:\Users\mhermans\somefile.csv' ``` I would like to use that path in subsequent R code, but then the slashes need to be replaced with forward slashes, otherwise R interprets it as escapes (eg. "\U used without hex digits" errors). I have however not been able to find a function that can replace the backslashes with foward slashes or double escape them. All those functions assume those characters are escaped. So, is there something along the lines of: ``` >gsub('\\', '/', 'C:\Users\mhermans') C:/Users/mhermans ```

Original source