R: How to replace space (' ') in string with a *single* backslash and space ('\ ')

Question

I\'ve searched many times, and haven\'t found the answer here or elsewhere. I want to replace each space \' \' in variables containing file names with a \

Answer 1

Very helpful discussion! (I've been Googling the heck out of this for 2 days.)

Another way to see the difference (rather than writing to a file) is to compare the contents of the string using print and cat.

z <- gsub(" ", "\\", "a b", fixed = TRUE)

> print(z)
[1] "a\\ b"

> cat(z)
a\ b

So, by using cat instead of print we can confirm that the gsub line is doing what was intended when we're trying to add single backslashes to a string.

Answer 2

Get ready for a face-palm, because this:

> gsub(" ", "\\\ ", "a b", fixed = TRUE)
[1] "a\\ b"

is actually working.

The two backslashes you see are just the R console's way of displaying a single backslash, which is escaped when printed to the screen.

To confirm the replacement with a single backslash is indeed working, try writing the output to a text file and inspect yourself:

f <- file("C:\\output.txt")
writeLines(gsub(" ", "\\", "a b", fixed = TRUE), f)
close(f)

In output.txt you should see the following:

a\b