How to get results of DIR command into AlterYX

Hello everyone. I have a requirement that I need to be able to look at a given directory, and get a list of all of the files + folders in that directory.

Unfortunately the Directory command tool only shows files (if anyone knows how to get it to show just directories please let me know!).

Because of this limitation I was planning on using a run command to simply produce the outputs of a given directory command. However I cannot seem to get alteryx to 'read back' the output of the directory command.

Attached is my current example workflow (very simple workflow to show an example of the problem i'm having). Does anyone have any ideas on how to get this function to work correctly?

Thanks!

Directory Tool Not Working.yxzp

Input

Accepted answers

jdunkerley79

The batch file is written within the RunCommand tool:

This is then executed:

And finally the results are read as a flat file:

This is far and away my favourite trick with the Run Command tool as you can pretty much do anything this way (in a past life used it to access financial data for analytics)

All comments

jdunkerley79

Have attached a RunCommand example getting a directory list.

RunDommandDir.yxmd

s_pichaipillai

what about this Macro using Directory tool?

this will result below details

DIR.yxzp

bsharbo

Bunkerly to the rescue again! Okay so as always I have a few questions for you here :-) It looks like are building the commands for a .bat file and somehow storing it SOMEWHERE.... and then the command line is using the pushd command to change the directory to the .bat file you just made, then running the dir command, and then using the popd command to get back to the original directory...

You union statement produces the following commands...

pushd "%~dp0"

dir /B "I:\Projects\Brandon\AlterYX Workflows" > dirlist.txt

popd

In my past experience with bat files, if you had a batfile in a directory called c:\mybatfiles\MyBat.bat and you input that variable %~dp0, it would actually resolve too c:\mybatfiles (the full directory of the bat file location). However I can't see where you are making a bat file in your code so I am bit confused :-)

I appreciate your help again as always!

Thanks for the additional info!

calebhowellks

This is a helpful demonstration! Thank you for sharing this.

Suppose that I wanted to include the owner of the file (command /Q), for example. This does not seem to work. How could this workflow be adjusted to pull in that information?

Caleb

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