File System Functions
Overview
These functions operate directly on files and/or directories in the file system. See Directory Functions and Path Functions for functions that work with Forge’s directory stack and manipulate paths independently of the file system.
File system operations made from Forge during a post-order graph traversal are synchronized by the ordering implied by dependencies. As usual when dealing with the file system there is no synchronization with other processes that might be working with the same files or directories.
Functions
cp
function cp ( source, destination )
Copy a file from source to destination.
It is an error to try and copy to an already existing file. Use rm() to remove any existing file when it is expected that there is already a file at the path specified by destination.
Parameters:
sourcethe path to the file to copy fromdestinationthe path to file to copy to
exists
function exists ( path )
Check whether or not the file or directory at path exists. Returns true if path refers to an existing file or directory otherwise false.
Parameters:
paththe path to check for existence
Returns:
True if there is a file system entry (file, directory, or otherwise) at path otherwise false.
find
function find ( path )
Recursively list the contents of path and any descended directories.
The directory passed in is assumed to refer to a directory and its contents and descendents returned as an iterator. Relative paths are relative to the current working directory.
Glob patterns are not used - any filtering based on pattern matching must be done by the caller as each entry in the directory tree is returned.
Parameters:
paththe path to recursively find files within and beneath
Returns:
An iterator that recursively iterates over files within and beneath the directory specified by path.
is_directory
function is_directory ( path )
Check whether or not path is a directory.
Parameters:
paththe path to check for being a directory
Returns:
True if path is a directory otherwise false.
is_file
function is_file ( path )
Check whether or not a path is a file.
Parameters:
paththe path to check for being a file
Returns:
True if path is a file otherwise false.
ls
function ls ( path )
List the contents of path (which is assumed to be a directory).
The path passed in is assumed to refer to a directory and its contents are returned as an iterator. Relative paths are relative to the current working directory.
Glob patterns are not used - any filtering based on pattern matching must be done by the caller as each entry in the directory is returned.
Parameters:
paththe path to list files within
Returns:
An iterator that recursively iterates over files within the directory specified by path.
mkdir
function mkdir ( path )
Make a directory at path.
Relative paths are relative to the current working directory. Intermediate directories in path that do not already exist are also created.
Parameters:
paththe path to the directory to create
rm
function rm ( path )
Remove the file or directory at path.
When removing a directory only the directory itself is removed. Attempting to remove a directory that still contains files or other directories generates an error.
Parameters:
paththe path to the file or directory to remove
rmdir
function rmdir ( path )
Remove the directory and content at path.
Recursively removes a directory and all of its content. Be careful!
Parameters:
paththe path to the directory to remove
touch
function touch ( path )
Update the timestamp of the file at path to the current time.
Parameters:
paththe path to the file to touch