[R] R 2.11, shell, spaces

[RICHARD M. HEIBERGER]

On Windows, use the 8.3 name for file and directory names that have
embedded blanks.

You can discover the 8.3 name directly from R.

> system(paste(Sys.getenv("COMSPEC"),"/c", "dir/x c:\\pr*"))
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is B869-26CD

 Directory of c:\

02/12/2010  03:52 PM    <DIR>          PROGRA~1     Program Files
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               1 Dir(s)  84,491,341,824 bytes free
>

so now you know that on my machine you can say
      progra~1
instead of
      Program Files


It is usually, but not always, progra~1.  The 8.3 names depends on what other
potentially confusing names are in the same directory.

You can also do this from the DOS prompt

dir /x  c:\pr*


Rich