Working directory using an RStudio project on a USB drive?

[sjkiss]

If I set up an RStudio project on a USB key, open it and run getwd() on my mac, then it returns `/Volumes/disk_name'. So that's fine.
I'm just curious what it would return on a PC? I've never used R on a PC.
Would a person be able to move back and forth from a Mac and a PC with R and RStudio installed on each, working on the files each time?

[martin.R]

Projects should be portable between different platforms as long as relative references are used for directories from the project root. I have no problem copying projects between Windows PCs and a Linux server. I presume the same would apply for Macs, too.

Just remember to use "/" for directories, rather than double backslashes "\" which are only valid in R for Windows (I believe).

[sjkiss]

Thanks, can you give a quick explanation of what relative references mean? I think I know what you mean, you're talking about relative references to the root path directory. But what would this look like in practice?

[martin.R]

If you have a project in "/Volumes/disk_name" as per your example, then an absolute reference to a file would be:

"/Volumes/disk_name/data/myfile.csv"

The equivalent relative reference would be:

"data/myfile.csv"

If you move the project to e.g. a Windows PC, then you could still use the relative reference even if the project was moved to e.g. "C:\Documents\NewProject".