title: print backslash in R strings
body: <p>GNU R 3.02</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt; bib &lt;- "\cite"
  Error: '\c' is an unrecognized escape in character string starting ""\c"
  &gt; bib &lt;- "\\cite"
  &gt; print(bib)
  [1] "\\cite"
  &gt; sprintf(bib)
  [1] "\\cite"
  &gt; 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>how can I print out the string variable bib with just one "\"?</p>
  
  <p>(I've tried everything conceivable, and discover that R treats the "\\" as one character.)</p>
  
  <p>I see that in many cases this is not a problem, since this is usually handled internally by R, say, if the string were to be used as text for a plot.</p>
  
  <p>But I need to send it to LaTeX. So I really have to remove it.</p>
  
  <p>I see <code>cat</code> does the trick. If cat could only be made to send its result to a string.</p>