file                  package:base                  R Documentation

_F_i_l_e _M_a_n_i_p_u_l_a_t_i_o_n

_D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n:

     These functions provide a very basic interface to the computer's
     filestore.

_U_s_a_g_e:

     file.create(...)
     file.exists(...)
     file.remove(...)
     file.append(file1, file2)
     dir.create(path)
     basename(path)
     dirname(path)

_A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s:

..., file1, file2, path: character vectors, containing file names.

_D_e_t_a_i_l_s:

     The `...' arguments are concatenated to form one character string:
     you can specify the files separately or as one vector.

     `file.create' creates files with the given names if they do not
     already exist and truncates them if they do. It returns a logical
     vector indicating the success or failure of the operation for each
     file.

     `file.exists' returns a logical vector indicating whether the
     files named by its argument exist.

     `file.remove' attempts to remove the files named in its argument. 
     It returns a logical vector indicating whether or not it succeeded
     in removing each file.

     `file.append' attempts to append the files named by its second
     argument to those named by its first.  The R subscript recycling
     rule is used to align names given in vectors of different lengths.

     `dir.create' creates the last element of the path. It returns a
     logical, true for success.

     `basename' removes all of the path up to the last path separator
     (if any).

     `dirname' returns the part of the `path' up to (but excluding) the
     last path separator, or `"."' if there is no path separator.

     In both `basename' and `dirname' trailing file separators are
     removed before dissecting the path, and for `dirname' any trailing
     file separators are removed from the result.

_A_u_t_h_o_r(_s):

     Ross Ihaka, Brian Ripley

_S_e_e _A_l_s_o:

     `file.show', `list.files'.

_E_x_a_m_p_l_e_s:

     cat("file A\n", file="A")
     cat("file B\n", file="B")
     file.append("A", "B")
     file.create("A")
     file.append("A", rep("B", 10))
     if(interactive()) file.show("A")

     file.remove("A","B")

     basename(file.path("","p1","p2","p3","filename"))
     dirname(file.path("","p1","p2","p3","filename"))

