Listing *.tif files in directories meeting certain criteria

Question

I want to list all *.tif files in directories that contain specific numeric values. Example: Path_source <- "C:/Files/" Within this folder, I have 1000 folders, each named jobXXX where XXX stands for numeric value 1-999. So there is a folder job0, job1, ... , job999. Within each jobXXX folder I have other folders and files. From this structure of folders I want to extract all files with the following pattern:

Year <- 2021

file.ls <- list.files(path=Path_source, pattern=paste0("Text_",Year,".*\\.tif"),all.files = TRUE, full.names = TRUE, recursive = TRUE)

So my missing element is now to filter the directories for folders with specific job numbers:

jobs <- c(1,14,45,67,129,834)

Example outcome:

> file.ls

[1] "C:/Files/job14/folder12/Text_2021_anothertext_abc.tif"

[2] "C:/Files/job45/folder81/Text_2021_anothertext_efg.tif"

Which function should I use?

Thank you

Please give 3 or 4 directories names examples (wanted and not wanted) and expected output. — Rui Barradas, Oct 07 '21 at 15:08

Rui Barradas · Answer 1 · 2021-10-07T16:13:20.283

1

The following function creates part of the filenames. Then a sapply loop gets the directories in the vector returned by the function.

make_dir_name <- function(Path_prefix, job_prefix, job_number){
  fmt_string <- paste0(Path_prefix, job_prefix, "%d[^[:digit:]]+")
  sprintf(fmt_string, job_number)
}

jobs_dirs <- make_dir_name(Path_source, "job", jobs)
i <- sapply(jobs_dirs, \(d) grep(d, file.ls))
i <- unname(unlist(i))
file.ls[i]

Test data

file.ls <-
c("C:/Files/job14/folder12/Text_2021_anothertext_abc.tif", 
  "C:/Files/job45/folder81/Text_2021_anothertext_efg.tif")

edited Oct 07 '21 at 16:13

answered Oct 07 '21 at 15:25

Rui Barradas

70,273
8
34
66

Thanks, this is not exactly what I need but very helpful! I prepared an example output to make my question clearer. – MIH Oct 07 '21 at 15:57
@MIH See if the edit solved it, I simplified the function. – Rui Barradas Oct 07 '21 at 16:00
It works great - much appreciated! Just the indexing file.ls[i] is interesting - it doesn't work. – MIH Oct 07 '21 at 16:03
@MIH What is the value of `i`? – Rui Barradas Oct 07 '21 at 16:05
I get a list and the directories are list names. `> i` $`C:/Files/job45/folder81/Text_2021_anothertext_efg.tif` `integer(0)` – MIH Oct 07 '21 at 16:06
@MIH Try `file.ls[unlist(i)]`. – Rui Barradas Oct 07 '21 at 16:07
> file.ls[unlist(i)] character(0) – MIH Oct 07 '21 at 16:08
@MIH I have edited the answer again. With the test data in the question, it works with me. – Rui Barradas Oct 07 '21 at 16:14
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/237929/discussion-between-rui-barradas-and-mih). – Rui Barradas Oct 07 '21 at 16:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 07 '21 at 15:41

0

Sticking with base r this might be of help.

files <- paste("job", seq(1,10), ".tif", sep = "")

numbers <- seq(1,10, by = 2)
files_I_Want <- paste("job",numbers, ".tif",sep = "")

files[files %in% files_I_Want]

Using the %in% operator I can see what files are in my constructed files I want vector.

answered Oct 07 '21 at 15:41

Victor Feagins

126
10

Thanks, this is not exactly what I needed - I gave an example of output as I realised now I was not clear. – MIH Oct 07 '21 at 15:57

Listing *.tif files in directories meeting certain criteria

2 Answers2

Test data