pattern when reading multiple files and the pattern option

[R_newbie]

Hello,

I am trying to read multiple .xls files and I am not sure how the pattern option actually works. For example my .xls files are saved as sba_california , sba_illinois , etc.

What is the appropriate pattern code for the files to read? I think this is where I am messing up. Here is my code:

sba <-  list.files(path="raw/sba/", pattern="sba_.xls", full.names = TRUE) 
df.list <- lapply(sba,read_excel) 
bind_rows(df.list)
df.list

Thank you.

[andresrcs]

The pattern argument takes "Regular Expressions" (RegEx) so maybe something like this
pattern="^sba_.+\\.xls$".
RegEx describes a text pattern so there are many ways in which you can describe them some more specific than others.