Read Files from Directory

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Clement Wong
Clement Wong on 10 Aug 2011
Edited: Walter Roberson on 10 Jul 2022
Hey,
I'd like to be able to give a program a directory, and then have it run a second program on all files in that directory. For example, say I have a function, myFun(filePath) that reads, processes, and displays data from the file specified by filePath. Now, I'd like to write another function, in pseudocode below:
funtion dirFun(dirPath)
f = files(dirPath);
for x = 1:length(files);
myFun(f[x]);
end
Something like this. I want a function, here "files" which will return all of the file names within the directory, so that I can run the program on all my files. Is there such a function in MATLAB?

Accepted Answer

Fangjun Jiang
Fangjun Jiang on 11 Aug 2011
The function is dir().
Files=dir('*.*');
for k=1:length(Files)
FileNames=Files(k).name
end
  4 Comments
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 7 May 2020
Edited: Stephen23 on 7 May 2020
@Amin S: no need for a loop:
S = dir(...); % all of the names are in the structure S anyway.
N = {S.name}; % but if you really want a cell array of names, do this.
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 10 Jul 2022
Edited: Walter Roberson on 10 Jul 2022
What leads you to expect that nearly 11 years ago, @Clement Wong happened to need to start from the third entry instead of the first?
I suspect that you are thinking that the first entry is "." and the second entry is ".." but if so then that is an incorrect assumption on every operating system that MATLAB has ever been supported on. If you want to filter out "." and ".." you should do so by name, not by assuming they are in a particular position.

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More Answers (1)

Andrii Mazur
Andrii Mazur on 16 Jun 2018
Thank you!

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