<Reading files with varying names> Can we read a file from a folder just by its extension and not full name? Need help for this

[anjasing (Anjali)]

I have a folder XYZ which has 3 files with extension .jpg, .txt , .pdf and their names are not constant. How can I read this file with activity read text file with just the extension name and not complete file name.

[rmorgan]

so long as there was only one txt file in the folder

you can do a for each file in folder activity with .txt filter enabled

[mkankatala (Mahesh Kankatala)]

Hi @anjasing

→ Use For each file in folder activity and there is a option called Filter by in that field give the extension which files you want to get. (*.txt). Output - CurrentFile
→ Inside for each insert the Read text file activity and give the CurrentFile to the File name field of the Read text file activity.

Check the below image for better understanding,

Hope it helps!!

[pikorpa (Piotr Kołakowski)]

hey @anjasing
To get the list of files matching to your extension you can:

• Create a variable
  txtFiles (String) = Directory.GetFiles("YourDirectory", "*.txt")

Now, you can use for each activity to read each file.

[anjasing (Anjali)]

Hi Can I pass here different extensions like .jpg/.jpeg/.png in filter by??
@mkankatala

[mkankatala (Mahesh Kankatala)]

You cannot pass multiple extensions in filter you are able to pass only one… @anjasing

Hope you understand!!

[anjasing (Anjali)]

Thank you so much. Got it. It worked.

[postwick (Paul Ostwick)]

You can write an expression that uses multiple filters.

For @mkankatala too

Using DirectoryInfo.GetFiles instead of Directory.GetFiles, advanced filtering

Most times it’s recommended to use Directory.GetFiles to get the files in a folder. I’ve found DirectoryInfo.GetFiles to be more useful. It gets the files as an IEnumerable of FileInfo, which makes filtering easier and gives you more info about the files. You can later For Each through it and get any of the attributes of the file you want: filename (currentItem.Name); extension (currentItem.Extension), full path and filename (currentItem.FullName) etc. Here is the full definition of FileInfo …

[mkankatala (Mahesh Kankatala)]

Hi @postwick

We can filter out multiple extensions with expression as mentioned in your post.

But Is it possible to pass multiple extension in the filter option in For each file in folder activity…?

[postwick (Paul Ostwick)]

No, so just write an expression that gets a list of all the files you want and use that expression in a regular For Each. The result is identical to For Each File in Folder.

[mkankatala (Mahesh Kankatala)]

Yes @postwick but in the beginning of the Post, they want to filter only .txt extension files, that’s why I suggested to use For each file in folder activity which is easy to use.

If they asked about multiple extension filtration then I’ll surely suggest them to use the expression for it.

And Thank you for the thread which is very useful for the Directory filtration expressions.