How to capture a folder path in a macro

[Ataullah Khan]

Hi everyone,

I intend to capture a folder path in a macro and use it later in a program to save files to after the end of my DO file. This path shall be capture programmatically through the window command and not manually through the "cd" command

I found this code helpful but it also include the file name with it. I only need the directory path excluding file name.

capture window fopen D_dta "Select a dataset to use:" xlsx

1. So, is there a way to either directly capture the directory path
2. I tried to use the tokenize command to substitute the last token (file name) with white space.
But, I don't know how to programmatically get the last token instead of manually entering it, and it does not work too.

tokenize "xyz\sample\test\sample.xlsx",p("\")
global newpath:subinstr global D_dta "`7'" "",all
di "$newpath"

Appreciate you help.

[daniel klein]

There is a series of functions for manipulating file path in Mata. pathutil (SSC) is a wrapper around those functions.

*ssc install pathutil
pathutil split "xyz\sample\test\sample.xlsx"
sreturn list

yields

. pathutil split "xyz\sample\test\sample.xlsx"

. sreturn list

macros:
           s(filename) : "sample"
          s(extension) : ".xlsx"
             s(suffix) : ".xlsx"
          s(directory) : "xyz\sample\test"

[Ataullah Khan]

Thank you daniel klein. This is what I wanted.
Appreciate your help