Create a backup version of a file by renaming it.

Inserts the date-time of the most recent modification at the end of the file name, before the extension.

file.backup(name, fullpath = FALSE, keep.old = FALSE, verbose = FALSE)

Arguments

name

A character string for the name of the file.

fullpath

Return the full directory path to the file. Default FALSE, return only the file name.

keep.old

If FALSE (default), rename the file. Otherwise, keep old copy.

verbose

If TRUE, output warnings and list the files in the output directory when done.

Value

The name of the newly created file.

Details

Return is the new file name that was created, using whatever path information was provided in the file's original name. However, the fullpath argument can be set to TRUE, so a path with the full directory name will be created and returned.

Author

Shadi Pirhosseinloo <shadi@ku.edu> Paul Johnson <pauljohn@ku.edu>

Examples

tdir <- tempdir()
owd <- getwd()

setwd(tdir)
system("touch test.1.txt")
system("touch test.2.txt")
system("touch test.3.txt")
system("touch test.4.txt")
system("touch test.5.txt")
## note: no extension next
system("touch test.6")
list.files()
#> [1] "downlit"    "test.1.txt" "test.2.txt" "test.3.txt" "test.4.txt"
#> [6] "test.5.txt" "test.6"    
file.backup("test.1.txt")
#> [1] "test.1-20251014-2024.txt"
file.backup("test.2.txt", fullpath=TRUE)
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpplWg8J/test.2-20251014-2024.txt"
list.files()
#> [1] "downlit"                  "test.1-20251014-2024.txt"
#> [3] "test.2-20251014-2024.txt" "test.3.txt"              
#> [5] "test.4.txt"               "test.5.txt"              
#> [7] "test.6"                  
setwd(owd)
file.backup(file.path(tdir, "test.3.txt"))
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpplWg8J/test.3-20251014-2024.txt"
## Next should be same path because input had a full path
file.backup(file.path(tdir, "test.4.txt"), fullpath=TRUE)
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpplWg8J/test.4-20251014-2024.txt"
file.backup(file.path(tdir, "test.5.txt"), fullpath = TRUE, verbose = TRUE)
#> File list of: /tmp/RtmpplWg8J 
#> [1] "downlit"                  "test.1-20251014-2024.txt"
#> [3] "test.2-20251014-2024.txt" "test.3-20251014-2024.txt"
#> [5] "test.4-20251014-2024.txt" "test.5-20251014-2024.txt"
#> [7] "test.6"                  
#> End of file list
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpplWg8J/test.5-20251014-2024.txt"
file.backup(file.path(tdir, "test.6"))
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpplWg8J/test-20251014-2024.6"