MATLAB: Save figure with default name - matlab

I am running a matlab-script that produces a figure. To save this figure I use:
print(h_f,'-dpng','-r600','filename.png')
What this means is that if I don't change filename for each time I run the script, the figure filename.png will be overwritten.
Is there a way to save a figure to a default name, e.g. untitled.png, and then when the script is run twice it will make a new figure untitled(1).png instead of overwriting the original one?

You could create a new filename based on the number of existing files
defaultName = 'untitled';
fileName = sprintf('%s_%d.png', defaultName, ...
length(dir([defaultName '_*.png'])));
print(h_f,'-dpng','-r600', fileName)
Add a folder path to your dir search path if the files aren't located in your current working directory.
This will create a 0-index file name list
untitled_0.png
untitled_1.png
untitled_2.png
untitled_3.png
...
You could also use tempname to generate a long random name for each iteration. Unique for most cases, see section Limitations.
print(h_f,'-dpng','-r600', [tempname(pwd) '.png'])
The input argument (pwd in the example) is needed if you do not want to save the files in your TEMPDIR

You can try something like this:
for jj=1:N
name_image=sscanf('filename','%s') ;
ext=sscanf('.png','%s') ;
%%do your stuff
filename=strcat(name_image,num2str(jj),ext);
print(h_f,'-dpng','-r600',filename)
end
If you want to execute your script multiple time (because you don't want to use a "for") just declare a variable (for example jjthat will be incremented at the end of the script:
jj=jj+1;
Be careful to don't delete this variable and, when you start again your script, you will use the next value of jj to compose the name of the new image.
This is just an idea

Related

Code to autotsort files creating temp file instead of folder

In the below code I am trying to sort files based on a string within the name. I've been piecing this together with google searches and community help (I'm very new at matlab). Right now I'm getting two odd errors. First, when I try and make a folder, it creates some file (highlighted filein picture that I can't open and the wav files that should have been moved to the folder disappear.
I'm also having an issue where the code renames the first two data files moved to "01" and "01 (1)" and I have no idea why.
DirIn = 'C:\Folder\Experiment' %set incoming directory
eval(['filelist=dir(''' DirIn '/*.wav'')']) %get file list
for i = 1:length(filelist);
Filename = filelist(i).name
name = strsplit(Filename, '_');
newStr = extractBetween(name,7,8);
if strcmp(newStr,'01')
DirOut = fullfile(DirIn, '01');
mkdir DirIn DirOut
movefile(fullfile(filelist(i).folder, filelist(i).name), DirOut);
end
end
This should work:
DirIn = 'C:\Folder\Experiment'; %set incoming directory
filelist=dir(fullfile(DirIn, '*.wav')); %get file list
DirOut = fullfile(DirIn, '01');
for i = 1:length(filelist);
Filename = filelist(i).name
newStr = Filename(7:8);
if strcmp(newStr,'01')
if ~exist(DirOut)
mkdir(DirOut)
end
movefile(fullfile(filelist(i).folder, filelist(i).name), DirOut);
end
end
Firstly, you don't need eval to get the file list. eval impact performance significantly. The below is what you should have done:
filelist=dir(fullfile(DirIn, '*.wav'));
You don't need strsplit or extractBetween since you only intend to extract a part of the string by indexing, i.e. the 7th and 8th characters, you may do this:
newStr = Filename(7:8);
To use variable as an input, you need to use mkdir as a function rather than console command:
mkdir(DirOut)
Lastly, a bit of optimisation. Since DirOut is constant, you can take it outside the loop. You may also want to check if DirOut has already been created to avoid the warning message and overhead in mkdir.
There is no issue with movefile.
Couple things go wrong, first, it is not recommended to use eval. In this case you can just create a character array to pass to dir as follows:
filelist = dir([DirIn '/*.wav'])
Then, you have a strplit that appears to do nothing, since it looks like your files don't have '_' in them, so name will just return Filename. But that is not the issue, since you are using extractBetween on the Filename.
The following does not what you think it does,
mkdir DirIn DirOut
will create two directories named DirIn and DirOut in the current working directory of Matlab. To create the directories you want, use:
mkdir(DirOut)
Since the output directory did not exist before, I suspect Matlab moved the file to the input directory, and renamed it to 01, if you manually add the extension .wav it should be one of the original files.

Matlab saving a .mat file with a variable name

I am creating a matlab application that is analyzing data on a daily basis.
The data is read in from an csv file using xlsread()
[num, weather, raw]=xlsread('weather.xlsx');
% weather.xlsx is a spreadsheet that holds a list of other files (csv) i
% want to process
for i = 1:length(weather)
fn = [char(weather(i)) '.csv'];
% now read in the weather file, get data from the local weather files
fnOpen = xlsread(fn);
% now process the file to save out the .mat file with the location name
% for example, one file is dallasTX, so I would like that file to be
% saved as dallasTx.mat
% the next is denverCO, and so denverCO.mat, and so on.
% but if I try...
fnSave=[char(weather(i)) '.mat'] ;
save(fnSave, fnOpen) % this doesn't work
% I will be doing quite a bit of processing of the data in another
% application that will open each individual .mat file
end
++++++++++++++
Sorry about not providing the full information.
The error I get when I do the above is:
Error using save
Argument must contain a string.
And Xiangru and Wolfie, the save(fnSave, 'fnOpen') works as you suggested it would. Now I have a dallasTX.mat file, and the variable name inside is fnOpen. I can work with this now.
Thanks for the quick response.
It would be helpful if you provide the error message when it doesn't work.
For this case, I think the problem is the syntax for save. You will need to do:
save(fnSave, 'fnOpen'); % note the quotes
Also, you may use weather{i} instead of char(weather(i)).
From the documentation, when using the command
save(filename, variables)
variables should be as described:
Names of variables to save, specified as one or more character vectors or strings. When using the command form of save, you do not need to enclose the input in single or double quotes. variables can be in one of the following forms.
This means you should use
save(fnSave, 'fnOpen');
Since you want to also use a file name stored in a variable, command syntax isn't ideal as you'd have to use eval. In this case the alternative option would be
eval(['save ', fnSave, ' fnOpen']);
If you had a fixed file name (for future reference), this would be simpler
save C:/User/Docs/MyFile.mat fnOpen

How to remove a pattern from filename in Matlab

I'd like to remove '-2' from the filenames looking like this:
EID-NFBSS-2FE454B7-2_TD.eeg
EID-NFBSS-2FE454B7-2_TD.vhdr
EID-NFBSS-2FE454B7-2_TD.vmrk
EID-NFBSS-3B3BF9FA-2_BU.eeg
EID-NFBSS-2FE454B7-2_PO.txt
So as you may see the names of the files are different and there are different kind of extensions as well. All what I want to do is remove '-2' from all of the filenames. I was trying use this:
pattern = '-2';
replacement = '';
regexprep(filename,pattern,replacement)
and I got the results in the console, but after many attempts I have no idea how to 'say' to MATLAB switch the filnames in the same location.
#excaza hit it right on the money. You'll have to probe your desired directory for a list of files via dir, then loop through each filename and remove any occurrences of -2, then use movefile to rename the file, and delete to delete the old file.
Something like this comes to mind:
%// Get all files in this directory
d = fullfile('path', 'to', 'folder', 'here');
directory = dir(d);
%// For each file in this directory...
for ii = 1 : numel(directory)
%// Get the relative filename
name = directory(ii).name;
%// Replace any instances of -2 with nothing
name_after = regexprep(name, '-2', '');
%// If the string has changed after this...
if ~strcmpi(name, name_after)
%// Get the absolute path to both the original file and
%// the new file name
fullname = fullfile(directory, name);
fullname_after = fullfile(directory, name_after);
%// Create the new file
movefile(fullname, fullname_after);
%// Delete the old file
delete(fullname);
end
end
The logic behind this is quite simple. First, the string d determines the directory where you want to search for files. fullfile is used to construct your path by parts. The reason why this is important is because this allows the code to be platform agnostic. The delineation to separate between directories is different between operating systems. For example, in Windows the character is \ while on Mac OS and Linux, it's /. I don't know which platform you're running so fullfile is going to be useful here. Simply take each part of your directory and put them in as separate strings into fullfile.
Now, use dir to find all files in this directory of your choice. Replace the /path/to/folder/here with your desired path. Next, we iterate over all of the files. For each file, we get the relative filename. dir contains information about each file, and the field you want that is most important is the name attribute. However, this attribute is relative, which means that only the filename itself, without the full path to where this file is stored is given. After, we use regexprep as you have already done to replace any instances of -2 with nothing.
The next point is important. After we try and change the filename, if the file isn't the same, we need to create a new file by simply copying the old file to a new file of the changed name and we delete the old file. The function fullfile here helps establish absolute paths to where your file is located in the off-chance that are you running this script in a directory that doesn't include the files you're looking for.
We use fullfile to find the absolute paths to both the old and new file, use movefile to create the new file and delete to delete the old file.

Matlab publish - Want to use a custom file name to publish several pdf files

I have several data log files (here: 34) for those I have to calculate some certain values. I wrote a seperate function to publish the results of the calculation in a pdf file. But I only can publish one file after another, so it takes a while to publish all 34 files.
Now I want to automize that with a loop - importing the data, calculate the values and publish the results for every log file in a new pdf file. I want 34 pdf files for every log file at the end.
My problem is, that I couldn't find a way to rename the pdf files during publishing. The pdf file is always named after the script which is calculating the values. Obviously the pdf is overwritten within a loop. So at the end everything is calculated, but I only have the pdf from the last calculated log file.
There was this hacky solution to change the Matlab publish script, but since I don't have admin rights I can't use that:
"This is really hacky, but I would modify publish to accept a new option prefix. Replace line 93
[scriptDir,prefix] = fileparts(fullPathToScript);
with
if ~isfield(options, 'prefix')
[scriptDir,prefix] = fileparts(fullPathToScript);
else
[scriptDir,~] = fileparts(fullPathToScript);
prefix = options.prefix; end
Now you can set options.prefix to whatever filename you want. If you want to be really hardcore, make the appropriate modifications to supplyDefaultOptions and checkOptionFields as well."
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Martin
Here's one idea using movefile to rename the resultant published PDF on each iteration:
for i = 1:34
file = publish(files(i)); % Replace with your own command(s)
[pathStr,fileName,ext] = fileparts(file);
newFile = [pathStr filesep() fileName '_' int2str(i) ext]; % Example: append _# to each
[success,msg,msgid] = movefile(file,newFile);
if ~success
error(msgid,msg);
end
end
Also used are fileparts and filesep. See this question for other ways to rename and move files.

MATLAB - printing graph with different output names

I have a MATLAB program that graphs some things and then outputs the graph to a file. If I run this program several times in the same directory, the file gets overwritten each time. How can I make it so the filename it outputs to changes...
I currently have this:
print -depsc myfigure
I have strings, rate and name, that I want to use, but can't get anything to work. If I can't use my strings, something random would be fine as well. Any way to do this?
Many thanks!
Name it with the current date and time:
print('-depsc2', ['prefix_' datestr(now, 30)])
run right now in PST, this creates a file called prefix_20100220T200733.eps. You can obviously change the prefix and/or the date format.
You can add current time to your file name. For example:
m=magic(10);
fh=figure, surf(m);
currenttime= datestr(now,'MMSSFFF');
print(['-f',num2str(fh)],'-depsc',['outputFileName_',currenttime,'.eps']);
This code checks if file exists, and if yes, adds a counter to its name.
filename = 'myfigure';
if exist([filename '.eps'],'file')
k=1;
while exist([filename '_' num2str(k) '.eps'], 'file')
k=k+1;
end
filename = [filename '_' num2str(k)]);
end
print('-depsc', filename);
Its simple. worked for me.
currenttime= datestr(now,'dd-mm-yy_HH:MM')
filename= ['graph' currenttime '.jpg']
print('-dpdf',filename)
Or any other file format you want to export. check print help.