How to extract specific characters in R String -

i have file name string:

directorylocation<-"\users\me\dropbox\work\" 

how can extract "\" , replace "\"? in other languages, can loop through string , replace character character, don't think can in r.

i tried

substr(directorylocation,1,1) 

but highly optimized case...how can more general?

thanks

gsub general tool this, others have noted need confusing 4 slashes account escapes: need escape both r text , regexp engine simultaneously.

an alternative, if using windows, use normalizepath , setting winslash parameter:

normalizepath(directorylocation,winslash="/",mustwork=false) [1] "c:/users/me/dropbox/work/" 

though may perform additional work on expanding relative paths absolute ones (seen here prepending c:).