process a list of files with a specific extension name in matlab

Question

How can I process all the files with ".xyz" extension in a folder? The basic idea is that I want a list of file names and then a for loop to load each file.

Answer 1

As others have already mentioned, you should use the DIR function to list files in a directory.

If you are still looking, here is an example to show how to use the function:

dirName = 'C:\path\to\folder';              %# folder path
files = dir( fullfile(dirName,'*.xyz') );   %# list all *.xyz files
files = {files.name}';                      %'# file names

data = cell(numel(files),1);                %# store file contents
for i=1:numel(files)
    fname = fullfile(dirName,files{i});     %# full path to file
    data{i} = myLoadFunction(fname);        %# load file
end

Of course, you would have to supply the function that actually reads and parses the XYZ files.

Answer 2

Use dir() to obtain a list of filenames. You can specify wildcards.

Answer 3

You could use

fileName=ls('*xyz').

fileName variable will have the list of all the filenames which you can use in the for loop

Answer 4

Here is my answer:

dirName = 'E:\My Matlab\5';
[sub,fls] = subdir(dirName);
D = [];
j = 1;
for i=1:length(sub),
    files{i} = dir( fullfile(sub{i},'*.xyz') );
    if length(files{i})==1
        D(j) = i; 
        files_s{j} = sub{i}; 
        j=j+1;
    end
end

varaible files_s returns the desire paths that contain those specific data types!

The subdir function can be found at: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/1492-subdir--new-