importing a list of lists

Question

I have a list of lists, a list of file paths for some number of directories.

I want to import that files as lists of lists, where instead of getting one massive 1D list, the distinct directories are preserved from which the imported data goes into.

filePaths={{"/dir1/a.txt", "/dir1/b.txt", "/dir1/c.txt"},  {"/dir2/d.txt", 
  "/dir2/e.txt", "/dir2/f.txt"}}

Import[#,"Table"]& @/filePaths[[a]]&/@Range[Length[filePaths]]

I tried using a double mapping method, but mathematica gets upset when I try to do it, even though trying Print[] as follows gives me the expected file paths

Print[#] & /@ filePaths[[a]] & /@ Range[Length[filePaths]]

Answer 1

You can import the data into a list with n elements, each element having in itself m tables imported.

For instance, assuming every dataset you care about is in a separate .txt file within each of the directories, you can do:

directories={"C:\\dir1", "C:\\dir2"} (list your directories of interest)

myData = Table[Import[#, "Table"] & /@ 
  FileNames["*.txt", directories[[a]]], {a, 1, Length[directories]}];

This makes a list of length n, containing the data of every .txt file found in every one of the directories in directories.

I hope this helps.