topic Re: Folder Creation in Alteryx Server Discussions

Folder Creation

navnidhsinghsahni — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 08:56:38 GMT

Hi,

Is it possible to create folders with Space in the folder name using Alteryx? I am able to create folders using Run Command tool but the folder names can't have spaces between them.

Re: Folder Creation

MichalM — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 09:17:21 GMT

@navnidhsinghsahni

You just need to make sure that you wrap the name in quotes

mkdir "Folder Name"

Re: Folder Creation

navnidhsinghsahni — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 09:23:40 GMT

Hi MichalM,

When I enter a command say:

"mkdir"+"C:/Users/Desktop/New Folder"

It creates a folder named "New" at the destination path and the run command returns an error:

"The external program "..." returned an error code: 1".

So, I am unable to create folders which have spaces in their names.

Re: Folder Creation

MichalM — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 09:45:05 GMT

Hmmm. That's strange. Do you want to built a .bat file with the command and execute that via the Run Command tool instead? I've tested with the below and it works

mkdir "C:\tmp\New folder"

Re: Folder Creation

navnidhsinghsahni — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 12:58:52 GMT

Yeah, running a pre-defined bat file via alteryx works.

But I want to overwrite a bat file with a folder name(Text Input) from the Alteryx Workflow.

I am doing that by creating a field called Command and feeding it to the Run Command Tool.

Command: "mkdir"+"Final Path"

It returns the same error

Re: Folder Creation

MichalM — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:11:09 GMT

@navnidhsinghsahni

You could use a batch macro to pass the directory name into the Run Command tool as described by @patrick_digan here.

Attached is an example he's built out. Let me know if it addresses your issue.

Re: Folder Creation

navnidhsinghsahni — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 08:54:51 GMT

This batch macro works perfectly. I am now successfully able to create a new folder with spaces between the names.

I figured out the problem I was facing. I was trying to create folders in the Shared Drive for a client.

So, there were some issues with the bat file but when I ran in the C:\ Drive, it worked perfectly.

Thank you for your valuable suggestions!!!

Re: Folder Creation

sngoh55 — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 06:36:23 GMT

Hi, so are you not able to create folders in a shared network folder? If so I'm in trouble. I want to create my app in their private alteryx server and create folders for my outputs as part of the workflow based on time of the run.

Re: Folder Creation

MichalM — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 06:44:51 GMT

Depending on what your output file is, you could use the Render tool to dynamically create a folder for you.

What is the file format you'd like to write?

Re: Folder Creation

sngoh55 — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 06:48:36 GMT

I'm just looking to output xlsx and csv files in the folder. I understand I'll need to use the block tool to create the folders first but not sure what else to do.

Re: Folder Creation

sngoh55 — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 06:55:00 GMT

To clarify, I'm wanting to run this as an analytic app, so I'm wondering if this .bat method with the c:/temp would even work to create folders in a network folder.

I can currently output fine in the network folder.

Re: Folder Creation

mohit9garg — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 06:18:31 GMT

@MichalM Thanks for the Macro. It is working fine for me as well. But there is small glitch.

I will be running this workflow multiple time in a day and every time I want workflow to save latest version of files, i-e, new folder should replace the older folder. Currently its throwing an error.

Error: create folders (23): Record #1: Tool #1: The external program "cmd.exe" returned an error code: 1

Re: Folder Creation

Emil_Kos — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 07:41:23 GMT

Hi @mohit9garg,

It looks like you get this error because those folders already exist. Maybe you need to delete them first.

The usual route would be using the rmdir command but it wouldn't work for you as you have nested directories in this folder. At the same time command like would ask you if you are sure that you want to delete this before running.

To overcome this you need to use /Q - it will click yes automatically and /S will inform that you want to remove all subfolders as well.

"rmdir /Q /S " + [Folder]

Maybe your folder should output a list of folders that you created and as a first step of the workflow you should remove all the old data first.