R move whole folder to another directory - r

Question

I would like to move the whole folder from one directory to another, this is my code,
folder_old_path = "C:/Users/abc/Downloads/managerA"
path_new = "C:/User/abc/Desktop/managerA"
current_files = list.files(folder_old_path, full.names = TRUE)
file.copy(from = current_files, to = path_new,
overwrite = recursive, recursive = FALSE, copy.mode = TRUE)
However, I am getting this error msg
Error in file.copy(from = current_files, to = path_new, overwrite = recursive, :
more 'from' files than 'to' files
any idea how to fix this? thank you so much for your help!

Answer 1

library(ff)
from <- "~/Path1/" #Current path of your folder
to <- "~/Path2/" #Path you want to move it.
path1 <- paste0(from,"NameOfMyFolder")
path2 <- paste0(to,"NameOfMyFolder")
file.move(path1,path2)
Try using this little code.

Answer 2

Easiest:
file.rename(folder_old_path, path_new)
If you want to check if path_new already exists you can expand the above to:
if (dir.exists(path_new) {
print(paste("already exists so recurively deleting path_new", path_new))
unlink(path_new, recursive = TRUE)
}

Answer 3

It appears as though the current_files = list.files(folder_old_path, full.names = TRUE) step is unnecessary. If my understanding of the R file documentation is correct, then you should be able to just use the following:
folder_old_path = "C:/Users/abc/Downloads/managerA"
path_new = "C:/User/abc/Desktop/managerA"
file.copy(from = folder_old_path, to = path_new,
overwrite = recursive, recursive = FALSE, copy.mode = TRUE)
If that doesn't work, then you'll have to create a new list of files (iterate over the current_files and replace folder_old_path with folder_new_path for each item in the list) and call file.copy on those:
folder_old_path = "C:/Users/abc/Downloads/managerA"
path_new = "C:/User/abc/Desktop/managerA"
current_files = list.files(folder_old_path, full.names = TRUE)
new_files = # replace folder_old_path with path_new for every file in current_files
file.copy(from = current_files, to = new_files,
overwrite = recursive, recursive = FALSE, copy.mode = TRUE)
... this all assumes (of course) that both folder_old_path and path_new exist and you have the correct permissions on them.
The linked page does contain a caveat/note about windows paths:
There is no guarantee that these functions will handle Windows
relative paths of the form d:path: try d:./path instead. In
particular, d: is not recognized as a directory. Nor are \\?\ prefixes
(and similar) supported.

Answer 4

On linux you should be able to simply:
1) make the OTHER_DIR if needed. If it is a subdirectory to OUTPUT_DIR then:
dir.create(file.path(OUTPUT_DIR, OTHER_DIR), showWarnings = FALSE)
setwd(file.path(OUTPUT_DIR, OTHER_DIR))
dir.create() will just print a warning if the directory exists. If you want to see the warning, just remove the showWarnings = FALSE.
If it is just another directory at the same level as OUTPUT_DIR then:
dir.create(OTHER_DIR)
2) Then move the file (e.g. if OTHER_DIR is at the same level as OUTPUT_DIR):
file.rename("C:/OUTPUT_DIR/file.csv", "C:/OTHER_DIR/file.csv")