Create Directory with for loop

Question

I continue to run into invalid 'path' argument when running my new script. I have a list of States in a .csv I have import and I am writing a for loop to dir.create.

I have tried Multiple ways to write this but not working. I can successfully create a dir by simply writing dir.create("new"), however it does not create when I use my variable in a for loop.

library(rvest)
library(dplyr)
library(tm)
library(stringi)
library(readr)

states = read.csv('C:/Users/mike/Desktop/Housing_Data/states/stateslist.csv', header = TRUE)

for(state in states){
  print(as.character(state))
  setwd('C:/Users/mike/Desktop/Housing_Data/states/')
  dir.create(paste0('C:/Users/mike/Desktop/Housing_Data/states/', state))
}

I expected the new directories to be created but running into path error

just dir.create(state) should be enough. And setwd() is not necessary inside the loop — domaeg
– domaeg, Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 16:01
tried that as well. I removed the setwd() as you recommended — Mike.J
– Mike.J, Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 16:06
It is in a date frame named states: Header: states,Alabama,Alaska, etc. 50 obs. of 1 variable. Do I need to convert them to a character or string? not to sure — Mike.J
– Mike.J, Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 16:22
Please add the complete output to the original post. It's hard to debug without seeing exactly what you're giving as input for the path parameter. — Tyler Burleigh
– Tyler Burleigh, Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 16:24

domaeg · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-08 17:09:06Z

1

You need to loop over the column of your data frame in my example states$state, in yours data frame it should be states$states. This works for me:

states <- data.frame(state = c("foo", "bar"))

setwd('C:/Users/mike/Desktop/Housing_Data/states/')
for(state in states$state){
  print(as.character(state))

  dir.create(state)
}

alternative: without setwd()

states <- data.frame(state = c("foo", "bar"))

for(state in states$state){

  print(as.character(state))

  dir.create(paste0('C:/Users/mike/Desktop/Housing_Data/states/', state))
}

edited Sep 8, 2019 at 17:09

answered Sep 8, 2019 at 17:00

domaeg

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1 Comment

Mike.J Over a year ago

Got it. Adding the $state into the for loop was the trick. Thanks!

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