CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rreadfile
lolibility
lolibility

Reputation: 2187

Read multiple files under different directories in R

I have multiple files which have similar names under different directories. The directory are named similarly for example: dir1 -> dir10.

Under each directory there are files named f1 - f10, and I want to read the first file in each directory.

Could I use a read.csv for example? as I need to use a variable to represent both the directory and file names.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 3280

Answers (2)

cbeleites
cbeleites

Reputation: 14093

An alternative for construction of file names is sprintf

file.paths <- sprintf ('dir%i/f1.csv', 1:10)

with expand.grid:

grid <- expand.grid (1:4, 1:3)
file.paths <- sprintf ('dir%i/f%i.csv', grid [[1]], grid [[2]])

Or, use Sys.glob

file.paths <- Sys.glob ('dir*/f1.csv')

the latter would also allow reading all f*.csv files in those dir*:

file.paths <- Sys.glob ('dir*/*f*.csv')

Upvotes: 10

Justin
Justin

Reputation: 43245

If David was right with his question, and assuming your working directory is the dir containing all your sub directories...

file.paths <- paste0('dir', 1:10, '/', 'f1.csv')
lapply(file.paths, read.csv)

Should be easy enough to extend this example to your specific situation. The only other function you might want to explore is expand.grid if you've got 10 files in each of 10 folders:

combos <- expand.grid(1:10, 1:10)
file.paths <- paste0('dir', combos[,1], '/f', combos[,2], '.csv')

Upvotes: 2

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