Local File Operations

Lua offers an IO library specific for handling file operations. Our FIL Library is based on these simple functions.

Basic file operations will follow a standard framework:

Use os.fs.glob() to iterate over files matching a given pattern. In this case, we are iterating over all files with the extension .txt in the defined directory.

-- 1) Retrieve Files 
local sourceDir = '/filePickup/'
for filePath, fileInfo in os.fs.glob(sourceDir..'*.txt') do
   -- add file processing here 
end

Depending on your workflow you can use the IO library or our FIL Library to:

Read files - io.read()
Open files - io.open()
Write data to files - io.write()

-- 1) Retrieve Files 
local sourceDir = '/filePickup/'
for filePath, fileInfo in os.fs.glob(sourceDir..'*.txt') do
   
   -- 2) Open each file to read
   local F = io.open(filePath, 'r')
   -- read or write
   local Content = F:read('*a')
   F:write('new data')

end

It is important to close file handles when finished with processing to release system resources and avoid file locks.

-- 1) Retrieve files 
local sourceDir = '/filePickup/'
for filePath, fileInfo in os.fs.glob(sourceDir..'*.txt') do
   
   -- 2) Open each file to read
   local F = io.open(filePath, 'r')
   -- read or write
   local Content = F:read('*a')
   F:write('new data')
   
   -- 3) Close file handles
   F:close() 
   
end

Typically, when ingesting files, any processed files should either be moved with os.rename() or deleted from the source directory with os.remove().

IguanaX Documentation

Local File Operations

Related pages