Reorder file names read by list.files function

file.names <- c("C:/tmp/June_2018.PDF", "C:/tmp/May_2018.PDF",

bfile.names <- sub("\\..*$", "", basename(file.names))
bfile.names

month <- sub("^([[:alpha:]]+)_.*$", "\\1", bfile.names)
month

month.names

month.names <-

month.number <- match(month, month.names)
month.number

file.names[ order(year, month.number) ]

Thank you Bill and RUI. I use month.name with sort and basename, as
suggested by Bill. i got the sorted numerical values, then i use
month.name to get proper ordered month names. The problem is that i
have to paste to the names the extension PDF giving me the correct
ordered file names, but then i get the same error message which
suggest that the code is not reading the files properly

I have not tried RUI's yet, but i will if nothing else works out.

Thanks again--EK

had to strip off file.names from the extension PDF, but when i paste
the month.name with .PDF to get the correct file names, i am getting
the same error.
On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 4:47 PM William Dunlap <wdunlap at tibco.com> wrote:

Use basename(filename) to remove the lead parts of the full path to the

file.  E.g., replace

   FNs <- sort(match(sub("\\.PDF", "", file.names), month.name))
with (the untested)
    FNs <- sort(match(sub("\\.PDF", "", basename(file.names)),

month.name))

Bill Dunlap
TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com

On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 1:38 PM, Ek Esawi <esawiek at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi again,

I worked with RUi's idea of using the match function with month.name.
I got numerical values for months then i sorted and pasted the PDF
file extension. It gave me the file order i wanted, but now statements
8,9,&10 don't work and i kept getting an error which is listed below.
The dilemma is if i add full.names=TRUE in statement 6 then statements
9 and 10 don't produce what they did earlier. If i put
full.names=FALSE, then i am back to square 1.
Any idea is greatly appreciated.:

The code

1. nstall.packages("tabulizer")
2. installed.packages("stringr")
3. library(stringr)
4. library(tabulizer)
5. path = "C:/Users/namei/Documents/TextMining/S2017"
6. file.names <- dir(path, pattern =".PDF",full.names = TRUE)
7. file.names <- str_remove(file.names,"\\s[0-9][0-9]")
8. FNs <- sort(match(sub("\\.PDF", "", file.names), month.name))
9. FNs1 <- paste0(month.name[FNs],".","PDF")
10 A <- lapply(FNs1, function(i) extract_tables(i))

Output and the error message.

path = "C:/Users/eesawi/Documents/TextMining/S2017"

file.names <- dir(path, pattern =".PDF",full.names = TRUE)
file.names <- str_remove(file.names,"\\s[0-9][0-9]")
FNs <- sort(match(sub("\\.PDF", "", file.names), month.name))
FNs1 <- paste0(month.name[FNs],".","PDF")
A <- lapply(FNs1, function(i) extract_tables(i))

 Show Traceback

 Error in normalizePath(path.expand(path), winslash, mustWork) :
  path[1]=".PDF": The system cannot find the file specified
On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 9:44 AM Ek Esawi <esawiek at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All--

I used base R list.file function to read files from a directory. The
file names are months (April, August, etc). That's the system reads
them in alphabetical order., but i want to reordered them in calendar
order (January, February, ...December).. I thought i might be able to
do it via RegEx or possibly gtools package, I am wondering if there is
an easier way.

Thanks--EK

Example
path = "C:/Users/name/Downloads/MyFiles"
file.names <- dir(path, pattern =".PDF")

Example output
Output:
"February.PDF"  "January.PDF" "March.PDF"
Desired output
"January.PDF"  "February.PDF" "March.PDF"

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