[SOLVED] Error handling when importing Excel files with read

Error handling when importing Excel files with read_xlsx

I'm importing a specific sheet from several hundred .xlsx-files into a dataframe in R. Unfortunately, there are a few files where that sheet is missing. Therefore, I'm getting "Error: Sheet 'XXX' not found".

Is there a neat way to handle this error by just skipping those files? Preferably without a loop.

This is what I've done so far, but like I said - without error handling:

library(tidyverse)
library(readxl)

path <- "here is my file path"
files <- list.files(path, pattern="partial_filename*.xlsx", recursive=TRUE)

read_xlsx_files <- function(x){
  df <- read_xlsx(path = paste(path, x, sep="/"), sheet="XXX")     
}

df <- lapply(files, read_xlsx_files) %>% 
  bind_rows()

Solution

You could add a try/catch in your 'read_xlsx_files'.

read_xlsx_files <- function(x){

          tryCatch(
                  { df <- read_xlsx(path = paste(path, x, sep="/"), sheet="XXX")},
                 error = function(e) {
                        print("Skipping")
                        df <-  data.frame()
                 }
          )
                        
}