[R] escape character to get " printed in output

Marc Schwartz marc_schwartz at comcast.net
Thu Nov 30 21:14:43 CET 2006


On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 15:05 -0500, roger bos wrote:
> I want to use R to run dos commands (either by create batch files or
> using shell())and I need to write double quotes on the file (or shell
> command).  As an easier example, lets take:
> 
> > print("hello 'hello' hello")
> [1] "hello 'hello' hello"
> 
> Lets say instead of the above, I wanted:
> "hello "hello" hello"
> If possible, how would I do that?
> 
> I understand that \ is an escape character, so I tried:
> 
> > print("hello \"hello\" hello")
> [1] "hello \"hello\" hello"
> 
> But that did not work.
> 
> TIA, Roger

Roger,

Don't use print(), use cat() so that the escaped characters are properly
interpreted:

> cat("hello \"hello\" hello\n")
hello "hello" hello
> 


See ?cat

HTH,

Marc Schwartz



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