R Escape Characters
Escape Characters
To insert characters that are illegal in a string, you must use an escape character.
An escape character is a backslash \ followed by the character you want to insert.
An example of an illegal character is a double quote inside a string that is surrounded by double quotes:
Example
str <- "We are the so-called "Vikings", from the north."
str
Result:
Error: unexpected symbol in "str <- "We are the so-called "Vikings"
To fix this problem, use the escape character \":
Example
The escape character allows you to use double quotes when you normally would not be allowed:
str <- "We are the so-called \"Vikings\", from the north."
str
cat(str)
Try it Yourself »
Note that auto-printing the str variable will print the backslash
in the output. You can use the cat() function to print
it without backslash.
Other escape characters in R:
| Code | Result |
|---|---|
| \\ | Backslash |
| \n | New Line |
| \r | Carriage Return |
| \t | Tab |
| \b | Backspace |
