How to Use file.path() Function in R

R programming language is becoming popular among developers, analysts, and mainly for data scientists. Students are eagerly learning R with Python language to use their analytical skills at their best. While learning any language, one is faced with many difficulties, and the individual learning R Programming Language gets stuck in finding solutions for the problems they are facing.

In this article, we are going to learn what is “file. path()” and how to use it in R programming language.

What is a file. path() ?

The file. path() function in R is used to include the files that are in different locations using the appropriate separator. It is used to include any file that is available in your system or more than one file that is present in different locations. We can use the file.path() function to include files that are in different locations in different operating systems such as Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.

Syntax:

The syntax of the file.path() function is

file.path(path1, path2, ...)

Where: ‘path1’, ‘path2’, etc., are the components of the file path.

Using file.path() function is so simple and easy, just make sure that the path you enter must be correct or it will not be able to locate the file.

How to use file.path()?

Now, as we have understood what file.path() function is, we are going to look how we can use it in our programs. In this section we are going to use R studio application that is use to write and compile R programs. It is recommended to use any IDE that is capable to run R programming language.

As we have discussed, file.path() function is used to include the file or files locations to use those files in your program, now we will look into some examples to understand how we can use file.path() function.

Importing single file

In this example we are going to import single file use file.path() function and then understand how it works. Lets dive in to the example and understand the concept.

R

a<-file.path("home","cosmos","limit_charge")
a

Output:

[1] "home/cosmos/limit_charge"

Now let’s understand what we have done in this example and try to understand what we have done here.

• Here, we have to use separator to define the file path, we use “” double colon to define the file path.
• “limit_charge” is the text file i have in my home directory.
• file.path(“home”,”cosmos”,”limit_charge”): This means that locate the file and the location is “home/cosmos/limit_charge”
• Remember we have to use separator here instead of “forward or backward slash“

Setting working directory using file.path()

In this example we are going to see how we can use file.path() to set up our working directory in R studio. For your information, we have to manually set the working directory in R studio to save our scripts.

Now lets look into our example and understand the concept.

R

path<-file.path("home","cosmos","R")

path

setwd(path)

Output:

[1] "home/cosmos/R"
setwd(path)

Here we have used the file.path() function to set up our current working directory.

• I have a directory named “R” to set that dierctory as our working directory
• As we have already leant, we have to use doublt quotes to define the path instead of forward slash and backward slash.

Conclusion

File.path() is simple function to use and understand, it sometimes might create prooblem so it is recommened to use file.choose(). R programming lanaguage is becoming a new trend in software companies and the demand for R developer is increasing, its is better to learn R language so that it will add value to your resume and hence will help you to land on a good job.