Rscript file path with space

Question

I am trying to run the following R script in windows shell:

Rscript C:/Documents/Folder name containing space/myscript.txt

In this case I g

Answer 1

It is a BUG in R version 3.5.0 for Windows.
One workaround, apart from downgrading, is creating an R script with no spaces in its path and run the spaced one with source():

## C:\Documents\Folder-name-no-space\myscript.txt
source("C:/Documents/Folder name containing space/myscript.txt")

Then you run it with:

Rscript C:\Documents\Folder-name-no-space\myscript.txt

or also:

Rscript C:/Documents/Folder-name-no-space/myscript.txt

You may also try the 8.3 filename. You can get it with:

for %I in ("C:/Documents/Folder name containing space/myscript.txt") do @echo %~sI

UPDATE

Since 3.5.1 the problem has been fixed.

Answer 2

Simple solution: install a newer version of R.

From the version 3.5.1 release notes, the relevant bug fix is described here:

Allow file argument of Rscript to include space even when it is first on the command line.

Answer 3

Another convenient workaround was to create an alias for the portion of the path which contains spaces, i.e.:

SUBST k: "c:\Folder with Spaces"
rscript k:\scripts\program.R

Answer 4

Forward slashes work just fine with R, so don't worry about backward slashes. I've just verified and the following works at the CMD.exe terminal of Windows 8.1:

C:\Windows\System32> Rscript "C:/Users/hb/folder with spaces/script.R"
[1] "1+2+3"

C:\Windows\System32>

My best guess is that you've got the pathname incorrect. If it's a non-existing pathname, you do get:

C:\Windows\System32> Rscript --vanilla "C:/Users/hb/folder with spaces/non-existing.R"
Fatal error: cannot open file 'C:/Users/hb/folder with spaces/non-existing.R': No such file or directory

You can validate it from within R, e.g.

> file.exists("C:/Users/hb/folder with spaces/script.R")
[1] TRUE