Comparison of fs functions, base R, and shell commands
In fs: Cross-Platform File System Operations Based on 'libuv'

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Most of the functionality is fs can be approximated with functions in base R or in a command line shell. The table at the end of this vignette can be used as a translation aid between these three methods.

fs functions smooth over some of the idiosyncrasies of file handling with base R functions:

Vectorization. All fs functions are vectorized, accepting multiple paths as input. Base functions are inconsistently vectorized.
Predictable return values that always convey a path. All fs functions return a character vector of paths, a named integer or a logical vector, where the names give the paths. Base return values are more varied: they are often logical or contain error codes which require downstream processing.
Explicit failure. If fs operations fail, they throw an error. Base functions tend to generate a warning and a system dependent error code. This makes it easy to miss a failure.
UTF-8 all the things. fs functions always convert input paths to UTF-8 and return results as UTF-8. This gives you path encoding consistency across OSes. Base functions rely on the native system encoding.
Naming convention. fs functions use a consistent naming convention. Because base R's functions were gradually added over time there are a number of different conventions used (e.g. path.expand() vs normalizePath(); Sys.chmod() vs file.access()).

Directory functions

| fs | base | shell | | --- | --- | --- | | dir_ls("path") | list.files("path") | ls path | | dir_info("path") | do.call(rbind, lapply(list.files("path"), file.info)) | ls -al path | | dir_copy("path", "new-path") | dir.create("new-path"); file.copy("path", "new-path", recursive=TRUE) | cp path new-path | | dir_create("path") | dir.create("path") | mkdir path | | dir_delete("path") | unlink("path", recursive = TRUE) | rm -rf path | | dir_exists("path") | dir.exists("path") | if [ -d "path" ]; then ... ; fi | | ~~dir_move()~~ (see file_move) | file.rename("path", "new-path") | mv path new-path | | dir_map("path", fun) | No direct equivalent | for file in $(ls path); do ...; done | | dir_tree("path") | No direct equivalent | tree path |

File functions

| fs | base | shell | | --- | --- | --- | | file_chmod("path", "mode") | Sys.chmod("path", "mode") | chmod mode path | | file_chown("path", "user_id", "group_id") | No direct equivalent | chown options path | | file_copy("path", "new-path") | file.copy("path", "new-path") | cp path new-path | | file_create("new-path") | file.create("new-path") | touch new-path | | file_delete("path") | unlink("path") | rm path | | file_exists("path") | file.exists("path") | if [ -f "path" ]; then ... ; fi | | file_info("path") | file.info("path") | ls -al path | | file_move("path", "new-path") | file.rename("path", "new-path") | mv path new-path | | file_show("path") | browseURL("path") | open path | | file_touch() | No direct equivalent | touch path | | file_temp() | tempfile() | mktemp | | file_test() | No direct equivalent | if [ -d "path" ]; then ...; fi |

Path functions

| fs | base | shell | | --- | --- | --- | | path("top_dir", "nested_dir", "file", ext = "ext") | file.path("top_dir", "nested_dir", "file.ext") | top_dir/nested_dir/file.ext | | path_temp(), path_temp("path") | tempdir(), file.path(tempdir(), "path") | mktemp -d | | path_expand("~/path") | path.expand() | realpath -m -s ~/path | | path_dir("path") | dirname("path") | dirname path | | path_file("path") | basename("path") | basename path | | path_home() | path.expand("~") | $HOME | | path_package("pkgname", "dir", "file") | system.file("dir", "file", package = "pkgname") | No direct equivalent | | path_norm("path") | normalizePath() | realpath | | path_real("path") | normalizePath(mustWork = TRUE) | realpath | | path_rel("path/foo", "path/bar") | No direct equivalent | No direct equivalent | | path_common(c("path/foo", "path/bar", "path/baz")) | No direct equivalent | No direct equivalent | | path_ext_remove("path") | sub("\\.[a-zA-Z0-9]*$", "", "path") | No direct equivalent | | path_ext_set("path", "new_ext") | sub("\\.[a-zA-Z0-9]*$", "new_ext", "path") | No direct equivalent | | path_sanitize("path") | No direct equivalent | No direct equivalent |