Read multiple csv files into R

read-multiple-csv-files.R

# stack overflow answer from Joran Ellis:
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5319839/read-multiple-csv-files-into-separate-data-frames

# If the path is different than your working directory
# you'll need to set full.names = TRUE to get the full
# paths.
my_files <- list.files("path/to/files")

# Further arguments to read.csv can be passed in ...
all_csv <- lapply(my_files,read.csv,...)

# Set the name of each list element to its
# respective file name. Note full.names = FALSE to
# get only the file names, not the full path.
names(all_csv) <- gsub(".csv","",
                       list.files("path/to/files",full.names = FALSE),
                       fixed = TRUE)

# Now any of the files can be referred to by my_files[["filename"]], 
# which really isn't much worse that just having separate filename variables in your workspace, 
# and often it is much more convenient.