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help for dirlist                                    (version 1.3.1, 2005-04-04)
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Retrieve directory information

    dirlist [filespec]


Description

    dirlist is used as the dir command, but retrieves the information about
    files in in return macros (see below).

    filespec may be any valid Windows, Unix, or Macintosh file path or file
    specification (see [U] 14.6 File-naming conventions) and may include "*"
    to indicate any string of characters.

    Directory data are written to a temporary file using shell commands
    (Windows dir and Mac OS X or Unix ls) and subsequently read by the
    program. On Windows, dates are given in the format that the shell command
    provides, on Mac OS X and Unix the ISO date format YYYY-MM-DD is used.

    Mac OS X: Spaces in the filespec should be preceded by an escape
    character "\".


Examples

    . dirlist dm50*.do

    You can then access the returned results:

    . return list

    macros:
            r(nfiles) : "4"
            r(fsizes) : "814 209 296 493"
            r(ftimes) : "13:27:15 13:29:05 12:22:01 13:41:09"
            r(fdates) : "2003-10-30 2003-10-30 2003-10-30 2003-10-30"
            r(fnames) : "dm501.do dm502.do dm503.do dm504.do"
            
    . dirlist ~/DM\ data/dm50*.do (Mac OS X, space in directory name)


Note 

    The ado-file has been tested on Mac OS X, Windows XP and one type of
    Linux. Possible problems could occur caused by the layout of directory
    lists regarding column arrangement and date format.


Author 

    Morten Andersen, Research Unit for General Practice
    University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
    mandersen@health.sdu.dk


Also see

    Online:  help for dir, shell, return