Folder Creation

[navnidhsinghsahni]

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.

[MichalM]

@navnidhsinghsahni 

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

mkdir "Folder Name"

[navnidhsinghsahni]

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.

[MichalM]

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"

[navnidhsinghsahni]

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

[MichalM · Accepted solution]

@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.

[navnidhsinghsahni]

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!!!

[sngoh55]

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.

[MichalM]

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? 

[sngoh55]

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.