[R] using paste and "\" to create a valid filename

[Uwe Ligges]

Don't know about the details with RODBC here, why not just use forward 
slashes as in (used it in all of my courses and never tried "\\" 
before....):

rankFile <- paste("R:/New Ranks/SMC/SMC/", rankDate, ".xls", sep="")		

Uwe Ligges


roger bos wrote:

> I was surprise myself that I was having problems, because I have been
> doing this for ahile, but I get erros with the RODBC connection.  For
> example,
> 
> rankFile <- paste("R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC\\",rankDate,".xls", sep="")				
> 			rankFile
> 			xls <- odbcConnectExcel(rankFile)
> 			xls
> 			rankFile <- "R:\New Ranks\SMC\SMC\20050818.xls"			
> 			rankFile
> 			xls <- odbcConnectExcel(rankFile)
> 			xls
> 
> 
> You won't have my filename, but feel free to try it with any excel
> file you may have. Here is the R output.
> 
> 
> 
>>rankFile <- paste("R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC\\",rankDate,".xls", sep="")
>>rankFile
> 
> [1] "R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC\\20050819.xls"
> 
>>xls <- odbcConnectExcel(rankFile)
> 
> Warning messages:
> 1: [RODBC] ERROR: Could not SQLDriverConnect 
> 2: ODBC connection failed in: odbcDriverConnect(con) 
> 
>>xls
> 
> [1] -1
> 
>>rankFile <- "R:\New Ranks\SMC\SMC\20050818.xls"
>>rankFile
> 
> [1] "R:New RanksSMCSMC€50818.xls"
> 
>>xls <- odbcConnectExcel(rankFile)
>>xls
> 
> RODB Connection 15
> Details:
>   case=nochange
>   DBQ=R:New RanksSMCSMC€50818.xls
>   DefaultDir=R:\NEW RANKS\SMC
>   Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)}
>   DriverId=790
>   MaxBufferSize=2048
>   PageTimeout=5
> 
> 
> On 8/19/05, Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
> 
>>roger bos wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Sometimes even the easy stuff is difficult (for me)... I want to get
>>>input from different places to paste together an excel filename (so
>>>you know I'm using windows) that I can open with RODBC.  I know about
>>>using double "\" since its an escape character, but I get either 2 or
>>>none, I can't get just one "\" where I need it.  See example code
>>>below.  I am using R 2.1.0, but plan to upgrade soon.  Thanks in
>>>advance to anyone who can help.
>>>
>>>Roger
>>>
>>>
>>>rankPath <- "R:\New Ranks\SMC\SMC"
>>>rankDate <- "20050819"
>>>rankFile <- paste(rankPath,rankDate,".xls", sep="")
>>>rankFile
>>>[1] "R:New RanksSMCSMC20050819.xls"
>>>
>>>
>>>rankPath <- "R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC"
>>>rankDate <- "20050819"
>>>rankFile <- paste(rankPath,rankDate,".xls", sep="")
>>>rankFile
>>>[1] "R:\\New Ranks\\SMC\\SMC20050819.xls"
>>
>>
>>This is perfect, "\" is *printed* escaped, hence for file access you can
>>perfectly use this character vector.
>>
>>Uwe Ligges
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>