diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index f1e713e..50e2a9f 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Package: CodeDepends
-Version: 0.3-5
+Version: 0.3-6
 Title: Analysis of R code for reproducible research and code comprehension
 Description: This package provides some code for analyzing R expressions
   or blocks of code and determining the dependencies between them.
diff --git a/R/codeDepends.R b/R/codeDepends.R
index 79df362..f2331ac 100644
--- a/R/codeDepends.R
+++ b/R/codeDepends.R
@@ -206,9 +206,10 @@ function(e, collector = inputCollector(), basedir = ".", reset = FALSE, input =
             # an assignment.
        if(is.symbol(e[[1]]) && as.character(e[[1]]) %in% c("<-", "=", "<<-")) {
             # Do the left hand side first.
-            #if it is a simple name, then it is an output,
+            #if it is a simple name (or a character value),
+            # then it is an output,
             # but otherwise it is a call and may have more inputs.
-           if(!is.name(e[[2]])) {
+           if(!(is.name(e[[2]]) || is.character(e[[2]]))) {
 
                   # if this is a x$foo <- val or x[["foo"]] = val or x[i, j] <- val
                   # make certain to add the variable being updated as an input.
@@ -231,7 +232,7 @@ function(e, collector = inputCollector(), basedir = ".", reset = FALSE, input =
              # Do the right hand side
            lapply(e[-c(1,2)], getInputs, collector, basedir = basedir, input = TRUE, formulaInputs = formulaInputs, update = FALSE)
 
-            if(is.name(e[[2]])) 
+            if(is.name(e[[2]]) || is.character(e[[2]]))
                collector$set(asVarName(e[[2]]))
             else {
                # handle, e.g.