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Making A Directory If It Doesn't Already Exist

Problem

You want to create a directory only if it doesn't already exist.

Solution

The function make-directory raises an exception if the directory already exists so you have to check for the directory before you attempt to create it. Use the function maybe-make-directory:

(define (maybe-make-directory directory)
  (if (not (directory-exists? directory))
      (make-directory directory)))

Discussion

In many scripting applications you have to create a directory the first time the script is run (for example, to store log files) but not on future runs of the script. Although the code to do this is simple it recurs so frequently that it is worth creating a function just to handle this task.

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Contributors

-- NoelWelsh - 18 May 2004