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Re: A Conditional File Import

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg66085] Re: A Conditional File Import
• From: albert <awnl at arcor.de>
• Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 03:40:20 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <e2ssos$4d2$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hi,

 
> I'm wondering if there's a way to do a conditional import of a file
> into Mathematica.  Say I wrote some code to process a lot of data and
> it takes a long time to complete.  After it's done, I save my results
> by exporting to a text file.  When I come back later (months
> later...) to pick up where I left off, I'd like to avoid
> inadvertently, and because of poor memory, running that long script
> again if I already have the results on my hard drive (you would think
> that I'd have the sense to check first, but no).
> 
> I was thinking of a script that would work something like this:
> 
> If there is a file X
> then
> import the file
> else
> [message] "The darn thing doesn't exist!"
> Reprocess the raw data --- [message] "Better make some coffee."
> End if

then why not convert this to Mathematica syntax and use it? It should work
fine, I think. If your question is how to check whether a file exists from
within mathematica, look up the function FileType in the help browser.

albert