Check directory path

Checks the specified path to a directory for formatting consistencies, such as trailing slashes, etc.

checkPath(path, create)

# S4 method for class 'character,logical'
checkPath(path, create)

# S4 method for class 'character,missing'
checkPath(path)

# S4 method for class 'NULL,ANY'
checkPath(path)

# S4 method for class 'missing,ANY'
checkPath()

Arguments

path

A character string corresponding to a directory path.

create

A logical indicating whether the path should be created if it does not exist. Default is FALSE.

Value

Character string denoting the cleaned up filepath.

Note

This will not work for paths to files. To check for existence of files, use file.exists(). To normalize a path to a file, use normPath() or normalizePath().

See also

file.exists(), dir.create(), normPath()

Examples

## normalize file paths
paths <- list("./aaa/zzz",
              "./aaa/zzz/",
              ".//aaa//zzz",
              ".//aaa//zzz/",
              ".\\\\aaa\\\\zzz",
              ".\\\\aaa\\\\zzz\\\\",
              file.path(".", "aaa", "zzz"))

checked <- normPath(paths)
length(unique(checked)) ## 1; all of the above are equivalent
#> [1] 3

## check to see if a path exists
tmpdir <- file.path(tempdir(), "example_checkPath")

dir.exists(tmpdir) ## FALSE
#> [1] FALSE
tryCatch(checkPath(tmpdir, create = FALSE), error = function(e) FALSE) ## FALSE
#> [1] FALSE

checkPath(tmpdir, create = TRUE)
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpgIZ9bl/example_checkPath"
dir.exists(tmpdir) ## TRUE
#> [1] TRUE

unlink(tmpdir, recursive = TRUE)