Reading multiple files from a directory, R

Question

I am having difficulty with one step in my code to read in a folder of text files and convert it to a dtm. The problem is that, for some reason, my computer is only able to intermittently establish a connection with the text files in the directory. The error that returns is:

Error in file(con, "r") : cannot open the connection
In addition: Warning message:
In file(con, "r") :
  cannot open file '[file name]': No such file or directory

However, I can easily open these files in any text editor, as well as in python. Any ideas why I might be able to establish the connection sometimes and not others? My code is below:

files <- as.character(list.files(path="[file path]"))
readLines(files[1])  #here is where the error occurs, for example
n <- length(files) #this is my loop
subtitles <- character(n)
subtitle <- character(1)

for (i in 1:n){
   subtitle <- as.character(readLines(files[i]))
   subtitle <- iconv(subtitle, to="UTF8")
   subtitle <-  tolower(subtitle)
   subtitle <- as.character(paste(subtitle, collapse=" "))
   subtitles[i] <- subtitle[1]
}

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 12 '12 at 04:35

9

List.filesonly gives you the file names, not file names with full path. Try

files <- as.character(list.files(path="[file path]"))
readLines(paste("[file path]",.Platform$file.sep,files[1],sep=""))

answered Apr 12 '12 at 04:35

morispaa

311
2
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11

or just use `list.files` with `full.names = TRUE`. – flodel Apr 12 '12 at 04:39
oh wow. thanks. this is just a working directory problem. Sorry for the waste of time! – brianabelson Apr 12 '12 at 06:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '14 at 04:24

1

directory <- "C://temp"  ## for example
filenames <- list.files(directory, pattern = "*.*", full.names = TRUE)

answered Aug 18 '14 at 04:24

Mitch Wheat

295,962
43
465
541

Very helpful for me. Thanks so much +1 – Ekaba Bisong Jan 30 '17 at 09:32

Reading multiple files from a directory, R

2 Answers2

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