[R] finding files whose name does NOT contain a given character

[Peter Dalgaard]

mauede at alice.it wrote:
> Unluckily I dela with miRNA files whose name may contain the character "*".
> Because of the special meaning of "*" I have to remove it.
> I found out how to make list.files() extract only those file names which contain a "*"
> Namely:
> # list.files(pattern="\\*") 
> 
> Now I have to process all files whose name does NOT contain the character "*".
> I cannot have list.files() extract all files  whose name does NOT match pattern="\\*
> I tried using "^" in such a pattern but nothing is returned.
> Any suggestion is welcome.

That'll be something like pattern="^[^*]*$" (untested, I don't think I
have any filenames with "*" inside...)

Alternatively, you might try

allfiles <- list.files()
withstar <- allfiles[grepl("\\*", allfiles)]
nostar <- allfiles[!grepl("\\*", allfiles)]

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