Replacing a period in a string

Hello I have a sting of the form "12.084.547,17" which I would like  
R to
understand as a number which has "," as the decimal separator, does  
anybody
know how to do this?

If that is in a file then read.csv2 is the answer.

If it is in a string within the R environment, then perhaps  
read.csv2(file=textConnection(robject_name))

Please do read the Posting Guide and post reproducible examples (or at  
least unambiguous descriptions of the problem).

David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT