Chicken » Module (chicken file)

## Module (chicken file)

This module provides various generic operations on files and directories. For more specific operations, see also Module (chicken file posix).

All errors related to failing file-operations will signal a condition of kind `(exn i/o file)`.

- New in CHICKEN 5.4.0: Errors caused by underlying C calls that change errno will produce a condition object with an `errno` property, which can be accessed with `(get-condition-property <the-condition-object> 'exn 'errno)`.

### Basic file operations

#### create-directory

create-directory NAME #!optional PARENTS? procedure

  Creates a directory with the pathname NAME. If the PARENTS? argument is given and not false, any nonexistent parent directories are also created.

  Notice that if NAME exists, `create-directory` won't try to create it and will return NAME (i.e., it won't raise an error when given a NAME that already exists).

#### copy-file

copy-file ORIGFILE NEWFILE #!optional CLOBBER BLOCKSIZEprocedure

  Copies ORIGFILE (a string denoting some filename) to NEWFILE, BLOCKSIZE bytes at a time. BLOCKSIZE defaults to 1024, and must be a positive integer. Returns the number of bytes copied on success, or errors on failure. CLOBBER determines the behaviour of `copy-file` when NEWFILE is already extant. When set to `#f` (default), an error is signaled. When set to any other value, NEWFILE is overwritten. `copy-file` will work across filesystems and devices and is not platform-dependent.

#### move-file

move-file ORIGFILE NEWFILE #!optional CLOBBER BLOCKSIZEprocedure

  Moves ORIGFILE (a string denoting some filename) to NEWFILE, with the same semantics as `copy-file`, above. `move-file` is safe across filesystems and devices (unlike `rename-file`). It is possible for an error to be signaled despite partial success if NEWFILE could be created and fully written but removing ORIGFILE fails.

  If CLOBBER is given and not `#f`, NEWFILE will be replaced when it already exists, otherwise an error is signaled.

  The BLOCKSIZE argument indicates the block size to use when copying the file a block at a time. It must be a positive integer, and it defaults to 1024.

#### delete-file

delete-file STRINGprocedure

  Deletes the file with the pathname STRING. If the file does not exist, an error is signaled.

#### delete-file*

delete-file* STRINGprocedure

  If the file with pathname STRING exists, it is deleted and `#t` is returned. If the file does not exist, nothing happens and `#f` is returned.

#### delete-directory

delete-directory NAME #!optional RECURSIVEprocedure

  Deletes the directory with the pathname NAME. If RECURSIVE is not given or false, then the directory has to be empty.

#### directory

directory #!optional PATHNAME SHOW-DOTFILES? procedure

  Returns a list with all files that are contained in the directory with the name PATHNAME (which defaults to the value of `(current-directory)`). Files beginning with `.` are included only if SHOW-DOTFILES? is given and not `#f`.

#### directory-exists?

directory-exists? STRINGprocedure

  Returns STRING if a directory with the given pathname exists, or `#f` otherwise.

#### file-exists?

file-exists? STRINGprocedure

  Returns STRING if a file or directory with the given pathname exists, or `#f` otherwise.

#### rename-file

rename-file OLD NEW #!optional CLOBBERprocedure

  Renames the file or directory with the pathname OLD to NEW. If the operation does not succeed, an error is signaled.

  If CLOBBER is given and not `#f`, NEW will be replaced when it already exists, otherwise an error is signaled.

#### file-readable?

#### file-writable?

#### file-executable?

file-readable? FILENAMEprocedure
file-writable? FILENAMEprocedure
file-executable? FILENAMEprocedure

  These procedures return `#t` if the current user has read, write or execute permissions on the file named FILENAME.

### Temporary files and directories

#### create-temporary-file

create-temporary-file #!optional EXTENSIONprocedure

  Creates an empty temporary file and returns its pathname. If EXTENSION is not given, then `.tmp` is used. If the environment variable `TMPDIR`, `TEMP` or `TMP` is set, then the pathname names a file in that directory. If none of the environment variables is given, the location of the temporary file defaults to `/tmp`.

  Note that `TMPDIR`, `TEMP` and `TMP` are checked in this order. It means that, for example, if both `TMPDIR` and `TEMP` are set, the value of `TMPDIR` will be used.

  Changed in CHICKEN 5.4.0: the values of the `TMPDIR`, `TEMP` and `TMP` environment variables are no longer memoized (see https://bugs.call-cc.org/ticket/1830).

#### create-temporary-directory

create-temporary-directoryprocedure

  Creates an empty temporary directory and returns its pathname. If the environment variable `TMPDIR`, `TEMP` or `TMP` is set, then the temporary directory is created at that location. If none of the environment variables is given, the location of the temporary directory defaults to `/tmp`.

  Note that `TMPDIR`, `TEMP` and `TMP` are checked in this order. It means that, for example, if both `TMPDIR` and `TEMP` are set, the value of `TMPDIR` will be used.

  Changed in CHICKEN 5.4.0: the values of the `TMPDIR`, `TEMP` and `TMP` environment variables are no longer memoized (see https://bugs.call-cc.org/ticket/1830).

### Finding files

#### find-files

find-files DIRECTORY #!key test action seed limit dotfiles follow-symlinksprocedure

  Recursively traverses the contents of DIRECTORY (which should be a string) and invokes the procedure action for all files in which the procedure test is true.

  test may be a procedure of one argument or an irregex object, regex string or SRE expression that will be matched with a full pathname using `irregex-match`. test defaults to `(constantly #t)`.

  action should be a procedure of two arguments: the currently encountered file and the result of the previous invocation of action, or, if this is the first invocation, the value of seed. action defaults to `cons`, seed defaults to `()`.

  limit should be a procedure of one argument that is called for each nested directory and which should return true, if that directory is to be traversed recursively. limit may also be an exact integer that gives the maximum recursion depth. For example, a depth of `0` means that only files in the top-level, specified directory are to be traversed. In this case, all nested directories are ignored. limit may also be `#f` (the default), which is equivalent to `(constantly #t)`.

  If dotfiles is given and true, then files starting with a "`.`" character will not be ignored (but note that "`.`" and "`..`" are always ignored). if follow-symlinks is given and true, then the traversal of a symbolic link that points to a directory will recursively traverse the latter. By default, symbolic links are not followed.

  Note that action is called with the full pathname of each file, including the directory prefix.

#### glob

glob PATTERN1 ...procedure

  Returns a list of the pathnames of all existing files matching `PATTERN1 ...`, which should be strings containing the usual file-patterns (with `*` matching zero or more characters and `?` matching zero or one character).

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