Input a list of files

Question

I want to include multiple files in my source. The files are to be included in a file liste.tex in the following format:

fichier1.tex
files2.tex
test3.tex
....

I relied on answering the questions TikZ read out file but the last comma added problem

How not add (or remove) the last comma

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{catchfile,tikz}

\begin{document}

  \CatchFileDef{\tempa}{assocFile.dat}{\endlinechar=`,}
\edef\tempb{\unexpanded{\foreach\tt in }{\unexpanded\expandafter{\tempa}}}
\tempb{\tt \par}

\tempb{    
\input{\tt}
\clearpage
}

\end{document}

Answer 1

Here's an implementation along the same idea, where the trailing comma is not a problem because \clist_map_inline:nn ignores empty items:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand{\multinput}{sm}
 {
  \IfBooleanTF{#1}
   {
    \rpapa_multinput_list:n { #2 }
   }
   {
    \rpapa_multinput_file:n { #2 }
   }
 }

\tl_new:Nn \l_rpapa_multinput_files_tl

\cs_new_protected:Nn \rpapa_multinput_file:n
 {
  \tl_set_from_file:Nnn \l_rpapa_multinput_files_tl { \endlinechar=`, } { #1 }
  \rpapa_multinput_list:V  \l_rpapa_multinput_files_tl
 }
\cs_new_protected:Nn \rpapa_multinput_list:n
 {
  \clist_map_inline:nn { #1 } { \input{##1}\par }
 }
\cs_generate_variant:Nn \rpapa_multinput_list:n { V }
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}

\multinput{assocFile.dat}

\bigskip

\multinput*{fichier1,files2,test3}

\end{document}

The input files just contain `I am ". Note that the *-variant takes as argument a comma separated list of file names.

A second implementation, where the “filename” case is dealt with doing a mapping on the file itself:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand{\multinput}{sm}
 {
  \IfBooleanTF{#1}
   {
    \rpapa_multinput_list:n { #2 }
   }
   {
    \rpapa_multinput_file:n { #2 }
   }
 }

\cs_new_protected:Nn \rpapa_multinput_list:n
 {
  \clist_map_inline:nn { #1 } { \input{##1}\par }
 }

\ior_new:N \g_rpapa_multinput_file_stream

\cs_new_protected:Nn \rpapa_multinput_file:n
 {
  \ior_open:Nn \g_rpapa_multinput_file_stream { #1 }
  \ior_map_inline:Nn \g_rpapa_multinput_file_stream
   {
    \input{##1}\par
   }
 }
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}

\multinput{assocFile.dat}

\bigskip

\multinput*{fichier1,files2,test3}

\end{document}

Answer 2

After the texlive update of 2024-03-28 you may use the l3sys-query tool (which is allowed in the restricted shell escape, so does not need --shell-escape).

The following small example would input all files matching abc*.tex or would print a notice that there were no such files. The comand has several options to recursively search subdirectories, or to sort the results, but a basic use is:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{l3sys-query}
\begin{document}
\QueryFilesTF{abc.tex}
{\input{#1}\clearpage}
{\section{input files matching \texttt(abc.tex}}
{\textbf{There are no matching files}}
\end{document}

Answer 3

Good morning I answer my question with the solution that I finally adopted.

I think using csvsimple with the command

\csvreader{liste.dat}{}{....}

allows me to have direct access to my list stored in liste.dat

The code below is an example of what I use to import images from a directory.

I was bothered by some file names that contained underscores _ hence the use of math mode to write the file name. I also need to resolve names with accents.

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{geometry}

\geometry{a4paper}

\geometry{margin=1cm}
\usepackage{graphicx} 
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning}

\usepackage{csvsimple}
\begin{document}
\csvreader{liste.dat}{}{
  \begin{tikzpicture}
  \node(img){
  \includegraphics[width=0.45\textwidth]{\csvcoli}};
  \node[below=1em of img]{$\csvcoli$};
  \end{tikzpicture}
 \hspace{2em}
}
\end{document}