R help - Nov 2006 - delete content of directory - unlink doesn't work as expected

Hi,

I try to delete the files in a directory. While the command

invisible(lapply( list.files( "DeleteThis" ), function(x)
file.remove(paste("DeleteThis", x, sep="/" )) ))

works, I keep thinking that there should be a more direct command.

"unlink" looks like a good candidate but whith this I only arrive to
either delete the whole directory or nothing happens at all. Code:

file.exists( "DeleteThis" )        # TRUE: folder is here

(unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*" ))             # 0, content doesn't get
deleted
(unlink( "DeleteThis/*" ))               # do.
(unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*", TRUE ))  # do.
(unlink( "DeleteThis/*", TRUE ))    # do.

unlink( "DeleteThis", TRUE )  # whole folder will be deleted

According to the help placeholders are allowed so I don't see where is an
error.

Thanks for your help!

-- 
Regards,
Hans-Peter

Maybe:

file.remove(file.path("myDir", list.files("myDir")))

or

here <- setwd("myDir")
file.remove(list.files())
setwd(here)

On 11/28/06, Hans-Peter <gchappi at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I try to delete the files in a directory. While the command
>
> invisible(lapply( list.files( "DeleteThis" ), function(x)
> file.remove(paste("DeleteThis", x, sep="/" )) ))
>
> works, I keep thinking that there should be a more direct command.
>
> "unlink" looks like a good candidate but whith this I only arrive
to
> either delete the whole directory or nothing happens at all. Code:
>
> file.exists( "DeleteThis" )        # TRUE: folder is here
>
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*" ))             # 0, content doesn't
get deleted
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*" ))               # do.
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*", TRUE ))  # do.
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*", TRUE ))    # do.
>
> unlink( "DeleteThis", TRUE )  # whole folder will be deleted
>
> According to the help placeholders are allowed so I don't see where is
an error.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> --
> Regards,
> Hans-Peter
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

This has worked for me:

system("rm path/*")



On 11/28/06, Hans-Peter <gchappi at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I try to delete the files in a directory. While the command
>
> invisible(lapply( list.files( "DeleteThis" ), function(x)
> file.remove(paste("DeleteThis", x, sep="/" )) ))
>
> works, I keep thinking that there should be a more direct command.
>
> "unlink" looks like a good candidate but whith this I only arrive
to
> either delete the whole directory or nothing happens at all. Code:
>
> file.exists( "DeleteThis" )        # TRUE: folder is here
>
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*" ))             # 0, content doesn't
get deleted
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*" ))               # do.
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*", TRUE ))  # do.
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*", TRUE ))    # do.
>
> unlink( "DeleteThis", TRUE )  # whole folder will be deleted
>
> According to the help placeholders are allowed so I don't see where is
an error.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> --
> Regards,
> Hans-Peter
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

Similar examples to yours work for me. Please tell us your OS and version 
of R, and, as the footer asks

PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.


On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Hans-Peter wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I try to delete the files in a directory. While the command
>
> invisible(lapply( list.files( "DeleteThis" ), function(x)
> file.remove(paste("DeleteThis", x, sep="/" )) ))
Oh, dear!  file.path() exists for a reason, and file.remove is 
vectorized.  Try

file.remove(dir("DeleteThis", full.names=TRUE))

> works, I keep thinking that there should be a more direct command.
>
> "unlink" looks like a good candidate but whith this I only arrive
to
> either delete the whole directory or nothing happens at all. Code:
>
> file.exists( "DeleteThis" )        # TRUE: folder is here
>
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*" ))             # 0, content doesn't
get deleted
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*" ))               # do.
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*.*", TRUE ))  # do.
> (unlink( "DeleteThis/*", TRUE ))    # do.
>
> unlink( "DeleteThis", TRUE )  # whole folder will be deleted
>
> According to the help placeholders are allowed so I don't see where is 
> an error.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595