How to return a collection of files from a given directory in Elixir?

Question

In Ruby, I can use

target_files = Dir["/some/dir/path/*.rb"]
#=> ["/some/dir/path/foo.rb", "/some/dir/path/bar.rb", "/some/dir/path/baz.rb"]

which will return an array of all of the matching files in a directory. How can I do something similar in Elixir?

There's also this: ryandaigle.com/a/recursively-list-files-in-elixir. — Onorio Catenacci
– Onorio Catenacci, Commented Nov 21, 2016 at 15:43

Peter Brown · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-18 15:38:48Z

38

You're looking for Path.wildcard/2:

iex(1)> Path.wildcard("/tmp/some/dir/path/*.rb")
["/tmp/some/dir/path/bar.rb", "/tmp/some/dir/path/baz.rb",
 "/tmp/some/dir/path/foo.rb"]
iex(2)> Path.wildcard("/tmp/**/*b*.rb")
["/tmp/some/dir/path/bar.rb", "/tmp/some/dir/path/baz.rb"]

edited Dec 18, 2020 at 15:38

Peter Brown

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answered Nov 21, 2016 at 11:31

Dogbert

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2 Comments

mCY Over a year ago

Path.wildcard("/tmp/some/dir/path/*.rb") |> Enum.map(&Path.basename/1) will output ["bar.rb", "baz.rb", "foo.rb"] in case you only need file name.

GenericJam Over a year ago

@Dogbert - the link above is broken. It's here now - hexdocs.pm/elixir/Path.html#wildcard/2

Michael Terry · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-22 00:48:35Z

6

And if you want to recursively gather files with a regex, there's :filelib.fold_files/5.

answered Nov 22, 2016 at 0:48

Michael Terry

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Comments

hipertracker · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-05 23:14:55Z

1

Path.wildcard/1 can handle recursive folders with two stars '**' (it works similar to Dir.glob in Ruby). E.g.

Path.wildcard("../data/??/**/*.yml")

answered Feb 5, 2022 at 23:14

hipertracker

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