Automatically change Input File directory each time the workflow is run

coren

I built a workflow to pull in all of the .txt files from a specific location and translate the information to an output file format that I need.  What I'm looking to do now is the dynamically change the input location for these files each time I run the workflow.  For instance, I have files in a location C:\User\Locations\Name\In\*.txt.  I want to replace the "Name" portion of that location with a different "Name".  The directory path will be exactly the same otherwise.  By doing this, it will allow the user to specify different locations before kicking off the workflow.  Then the workflow will be able to pull files from the different locations to process.  I could just save the workflow multiple times and change the input path each time, but I'm looking to avoid storing multiple versions of the workflow for each slightly different directory "Name."

Any suggestions?

My thought is that I need ot build a macro that allows a user to input an answer to a question (via text box) that replaces that specific section of the directory string.  But, I'm at a loss on how to do that.  There may also be a better way.

david_fetters

Hey Coren,

You can use a textbox as an input control and use the action tool to replace the filepath on each run.  Here's a picture of what the setup looks like:

Just set up your input tool to have a file name/path that works as its default.  The Formula uses the value from the text input tool to update the string containing your file path.  You can do the same thing with the regex or formula tools, just make sure you click on the exact "value or attribute you wish to update" with the formula (i.e. you must click on the file path there to have the formula change the file path, otherwise it doesn't know what to change).  You can also add conditional logic to the formulas you use here.

If you're attempting to read .txt files, you may want to make sure that your Input tool is setup to read the proper format.  If the .txt files are just CSV's, then the standard .CSV setting for the input tool should work fine.  If it is just a large string of text (e.g. a news article or other 'wordy' document) you may want to tweak the settings on the input tool:

The key changes I made are:

- setting delimiter to '\0' which is essentially no delimiter (so that your text does not get split into separate fields)

- changing field length from '256' to '10000' (so that your text file does not get cutoff after 256 characters)

- Deselect 'First Row Contains Field Names' because if you're reading a plain text file, there are no field names.

Hope this helps!