Create a list and append file names to this list - matlab

Question

I am trying to append filenames in a directory to a list for later processing. The code below does not work.
files = dir( fullfile(home,'*.csv') );
files = {files.name}'; %'# file names
symbolsList = [];
filedata = cell(numel(files),1); %# store file contents
for i=1:numel(files)
[pathstr,name,ext] = fileparts(files{i});
symbolsList(end + 1) = name; % THIS GIVES ERROR
end

Answer 1

In your code, symbolsList will be interpreted as an array of characters. The statement where the error is appearing is interpreted as appending a single character to symbolsList. You are probably getting a subscript alignment mismatch because a name will most likely have more than one character, yet you are trying to fit many characters into a single spot in that array of characters. That's probably not what you want.
You want each "space" to have a name. Because each name will most likely not have the same amount of characters, you should probably use a cell array instead:
files = dir( fullfile(home,'*.csv') );
files = {files.name}'; %'# file names
symbolsList = cell(numel(files),1); %// Change
filedata = cell(numel(files),1); %# store file contents
for i=1:numel(files)
[pathstr,name,ext] = fileparts(files{i});
symbolsList{i} = name; %// Change
end
Take note that I've pre-allocated the cell array and for each file you want to look at, I've indexed into the right cell and placed the name there. This is preferred over concatenation primarily due to efficiency. To access the ith name, simply do:
name_to_choose = symbolsList{i};
Minor Note
filedata in your code isn't being used anywhere at all. Are you sure you put all of your code up?