Octave: Load all files from specific directory - matlab

Question

I used to have Matlab and loaded all txt-files from directory "C:\folder\" into Matlab with the following code:
myFolder = 'C:\folder\';
filepattern = fullfile(myFolder, '*.txt');
files = dir(filepattern);
for i=1:length(files)
eval(['load ' myFolder,files(i).name ' -ascii']);
end
If C:\folder\ contains A.txt, B.txt, C.txt, I would then have matrices A, B and C in the workspace.
The code doesn't work in octave, maybe because of "fullfile"?. Anyway, with the following code I get matrices with the names C__folder_A, C__folder_B, C__folder_C. However, I need matrices called A, B, C.
myFolder = 'C:\folder\';
files = dir(myFolder);
for i=3:length(files)
eval(['load ' myFolder,files(i).name ' -ascii']);
end
Can you help me?
Thanks,
Martin
PS: The loop starts with 3 because files(1).name = . and files(2).name = ..
EDIT:
I have just found a solution. It's not elegant, but it works.
I just add the path in which the files are with "addpath", then I don't have to give the full name of the directory in the loop.
myFolder = 'C:\folder\';
addpath(myFolder)
files = dir(myFolder);
for i=3:length(files)
eval(['load ' files(i).name ' -ascii']);
end

Answer 1

It's usually bad design if you load files to variables which name is generated dynamically and you should load them to a cell array instead but this should work:
files = glob('C:\folder\*.txt')
for i=1:numel(files)
[~, name] = fileparts (files{i});
eval(sprintf('%s = load("%s", "-ascii");', name, files{i}));
endfor

Answer 2

The function scanFiles searches file names with extensions in the current dirrectory (initialPath) and subdirectories recursively. The parameter fileHandler is a function that you can use to process populated file structure (i.e. read text, load image, etc.)
Source
function scanFiles(initialPath, extensions, fileHandler)
persistent total = 0;
persistent depth = 0; depth++;
initialDir = dir(initialPath);
printf('Scanning the directory %s ...\n', initialPath);
for idx = 1 : length(initialDir)
curDir = initialDir(idx);
curPath = strcat(curDir.folder, '\', curDir.name);
if regexp(curDir.name, "(?!(\\.\\.?)).*") * curDir.isdir
scanFiles(curPath, extensions, fileHandler);
elseif regexp(curDir.name, cstrcat("\\.(?i:)(?:", extensions, ")$"))
total++;
file = struct("name",curDir.name,
"path",curPath,
"parent",regexp(curDir.folder,'[^\\\/]*$','match'),
"bytes",curDir.bytes);
fileHandler(file);
endif
end
if!(--depth)
printf('Total number of files:%d\n', total);
total=0;
endif
endfunction
Usage
# txt
# textFileHandlerFunc=#(file)fprintf('%s',fileread(file.path));
# scanFiles("E:\\Examples\\project\\", "txt", textFileHandlerFunc);
# images
# imageFileHandlerFunc=#(file)imread(file.path);
# scanFiles("E:\\Examples\\project\\datasets\\", "jpg|png", imageFileHandlerFunc);
# list files
fileHandlerFunc=#(file)fprintf('path=%s\nname=%s\nsize=%d bytes\nparent=%s\n\n',
file.path,file.name,file.bytes,file.parent);
scanFiles("E:\\Examples\\project\\", "txt", fileHandlerFunc);