How to check if a file exists | IgorExchange

How to check if a file exists

wholmgren	March 18, 2009 - 15:04		Permalink
Posts: 7 Joined: 2008-07-03 Location: United States	I'm looking for a simple way to check to see if a file exists, but without actually opening up the file and taking the time to read its contents. Maybe someone can suggest a smarter way to solve my problem: Our data folders are organized such that I have a bunch of files with names like a1.txt, a2.txt... a122.txt, b1.txt, b2.txt, b3.txt... b235.txt, c1.txt... I'd like to process all of the "a" files at once. Right now I have to manually enter the number of files to run my processing loop on. I'd like to automate that. I tried using IndexedFile but I couldn't figure out how to make it work for files that weren't just numbered as 001.txt, 002.txt, 003.txt... Alternatively, is there a way to keep LoadWave from complaining with a dialog box if it doesn't find the file it's looking for? Login or register to reply

aclight	March 18, 2009 - 16:19		Permalink
Posts: 519 Joined: 2007-03-01 Location: United States	wholmgren wrote: I'm looking for a simple way to check to see if a file exists, but without actually opening up the file and taking the time to read its contents. For that, you are better off using `GetFileFolderInfo` with the /Z=1 flag. You can inspect the value of V_Flag to determine whether the file or folder was found, and the value of V_isFile if you need to be sure it's actually a file and not a folder. wholmgren wrote: Maybe someone can suggest a smarter way to solve my problem: Our data folders are organized such that I have a bunch of files with names like a1.txt, a2.txt... a122.txt, b1.txt, b2.txt, b3.txt... b235.txt, c1.txt... I'd like to process all of the "a" files at once. Right now I have to manually enter the number of files to run my processing loop on. I'd like to automate that. I tried using IndexedFile but I couldn't figure out how to make it work for files that weren't just numbered as 001.txt, 002.txt, 003.txt... Alternatively, is there a way to keep LoadWave from complaining with a dialog box if it doesn't find the file it's looking for? There are quite a few ways you could approach this. The one I thought of first was to use the following snippet. Just put it in a function somewhere and it should work (though I haven't tested it). // Get a list containing all text files in the // specified symbolic path. String fileList = IndexedFile(myPath, -1, ".txt") // Filter the list of files to include // only files that start with the letter "a". fileList = ListMatch(fileList, "a*", ";") // Do something to each of these files Variable n, numFiles = ItemsInList(fileList, ";") For (n=0; n<numFiles; n+=1) // do your processing here EndFor Login or register to reply

wholmgren	March 18, 2009 - 16:43		Permalink
Posts: 7 Joined: 2008-07-03 Location: United States	Thanks! Login or register to reply