R Error: Unexpected String Constant in X (2 Examples)

In this article you’ll learn how to fix the error “unexpected string constant in X” in R.

The article will consist of this content:

Let’s dive right in.

Example 1: Reproduce the Error – unexpected string constant in X

In this Example, I’ll explain how to replicate the error message “unexpected string constant in X”. First, let’s create an exemplifying data object for this example.

x <- 1:5        # Create vector in R

Let’s assume that we want to print the values stored in this data object to the RStudio console. If we run the following R code, the error “unexpected string constant in X” appears:

x""             # Reproducing the error
# Error: unexpected string constant in "x"""

By mistake, we added quotation marks behind the name of our data object x.

Example 2: Fix the Error – unexpected string constant in X

Example 2 shows how to solve the error message “unexpected string constant in X”. Depending on what we want to do, we could either print the character “x” with the following R syntax:

"x"             # Print value as character
# "x"

Alternatively, we could remove the quotation marks and return the values of the data object x to the console:

x               # Print values in string
# 1 2 3 4 5

Video & Further Resources

I have recently published a video on my YouTube channel, which illustrates the contents of this article. You can find the video below.

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In addition, you may want to read the related articles of this homepage.

• Errors & Warnings in R
• All R Programming Tutorials

Summary: In this R programming post you learned how to deal with “unexpected string constant in X”. In case you have additional questions, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments. Furthermore, please subscribe to my email newsletter in order to get updates on the newest tutorials.