[R] Windows standard interface: change working dorectory

[Ebert,Timothy Aaron]

People who use computers should understand file names. It does not matter if you call them folders or directories they are the same animal.
I have a file called "my_file"
Where does it live? "On my computer" is like saying my mailing address is "Earth." 

All files have a memory location in your computer where the computer can find the file contents. All names consist of two, but more commonly three parts: location, name, type. These answer "where is the file," "what is it called," and "what kind of file?" The format for location is disk drive followed by an ordered list of (directories or folders) from outer to innermost. I am on Windows, so for me this looks like c://dir1/dir2/dir3/. In words, I look on my hard drive named "C" and will find a directory called dir1. Inside dir1 will be dir2 and inside that will be dir3 where I can find my file.

File names typically end with a period followed by the type of file. .xlsx for an Excel file, .txt for a text file, .csv for comma separated values file, docx for a Microsoft word file. Most of the time on Windows the extension is hidden, and the path is shown at the top of the window. This was all very obvious in the old days working with DOS, but windows made things "easy" and took this away from the default output. In any case, files are all saved something like this: "c://dir1/dir2/dir3/my_file.docx". 

I have multiple projects in R. I could change the working directory in R multiple times each day and try to keep up. I am bad at that. My solution is that I never change the working directory, so all read and write statements include the full file name, path and all. I can then switch between projects and not worry about where to read or save things and I do not sometimes get files saved in strange places. One could set the working directory at the start of each program, but that assumes that I want to always start working at the top of each program. I have not had much luck with that approach.

I sometimes write software for others to use. In this case I give users a popup window where they select their file using a graphical interface and then the program extracts the path from where the user got the file. This path is then added to the file name the user provides to save output. In this way I do not have to worry about the difference between "c://dir1/dir2/dir3/my_file.docx" and "c:\\dir1\dir2\dir3\my_file.docx"

Regards,
Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: R-help <r-help-bounces using r-project.org> On Behalf Of Calboli Federico (LUKE)
Sent: Monday, December 8, 2025 6:22 AM
To: r-help using r-project.org
Subject: [R] Windows standard interface: change working dorectory

[External Email]

Hello,

I need to provide the simplest possible indication to R users with either windows or macos machines on how to change working directory. Using setwd() will not work because I cannot trust them to even understand the concept of working directory.

On macos it is possible to have a GUI menu (the standard R GUI) that would allow the users to "click their way to where their data files are", is there such facility for the windows R GUI (the out-of-the-box one)? I have no access to windows machines, so I cannot check, but I am sure some people will use a windows laptop.

F


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Federico Calboli

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