I'm using uigetfile to upload my data. I've time stamped my data with a date. So a file I want to upload looks like Data-Dec01_11/45/35.txt The problem is uigetfile reads till the first "/" and then assumes that that is the end of the file name. Thus it pulls the file name Data-Dec01_11. But of course when I load that file it doesn't exist. How do I force uigetfile to pull the entire file name?
You cannot use slashes or backslashes in your file names, as they can be mistaken with the file separator, as in your case.
You can use ´regexpr´ to rename your files so they do not contain illegal characters, as explained in this trhead.
I copy here the code they suggest for your convenience (I've just added a slash and a backslash to the example string so you can see the results):
% these characters are allowed
legalchars = 'a-zA-Z0-9\-\ \_\.' ;
% illegal filename
A = 'Some#charac\ters$are(not&allowed/.txt'
% replace every other character with an underscore
B = regexprep(A,['[^' legalchars ']'],'_')
Related
I have a txt file containing following characters.
theta1 , l1 and others are symbolic variables.( Don't mind about it)
M=[theta1 + (l1^2*m1)/4 + l1^2*m2 (l1*l2*m2*cos(fi1 - fi2))/2 ;
(l1*l2*m2*cos(fi1 - fi2))/2 theta2 + (l2^2*m2)/4 ]
I need to take it out and make it a symbolic matrix. As you can see txt file is already fine for making matrix but I don't want to copy paste the whole thing to script, I rather want to do it automatically.
fid = fopen('a.txt');
MMatrix=textscan(fid,'%s');
fclose(fid);
I tried the code above but it turn out to be not useful. What do you think is the way to copy the whole thing and use it for matrix making?
Instead of reading that as a string or a character array and then possibly resorting to evil (eval) method, just rename the extension from txt to m since you already have your arrays defined in the MATLAB way in the text files. Maintain a backup copy of those original txt files if needed.
If it is a single file (a.txt), you can rename it manually or with this code to a.m:
movefile('a.txt', 'a.m');
If there are multiple such files in a directory then you can use the following code to change the extension of all such txt files in the current directory:
txtfiles = dir('*.txt'); %getting all txt files in the current directory
for num = 1:numel(txtfiles)
[~, fname] = fileparts(txtfiles(num).name); %filename (without extension)
movefile(txtfiles(num).name, [fname,'.m']); %renaming
end
Now you can simply use the name of the respective file in your script to get whatever arrays that file have in it.
I want to read multiple files from a folder but this code does not work properly:
direction=dir('data');
for i=3:length(direction)
Fold_name=strcat('data\',direction(i).name);
filename = fullfile(Fold_name);
fileid= fopen(filename);
data = fread (fileid)';
end
I modified your algorithm to make it easier
Just use this form :
folder='address\datafolder\' ( provide your folder address where data is located)
then:
filenames=dir([folder,'*.txt']); ( whatever your data format is, you can specify it in case you have other files you do not want to import, in this example, i used .txt format files)
for k = 1 : numel(filenames)
Do your code
end
It should work. It's a much more efficient method, as it can apply to any folder without you worrying about names, number order etc... Unless you want to specify certain files with the same format within the folder. I would recommend you to use a separate folder to put your files in.
In case of getting access to all the files after reading:
direction=dir('data');
for i=3:length(direction)
Fold_name=strcat('data\',direction(i).name);
filename = fullfile(Fold_name);
fileid(i)= fopen(filename);
data{i-2} = fread (fileid(i))';
end
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.
Via textscan, I am reading a number of .txt files:
fid1 = fopen('Ev_An_OM2_l5_5000.txt','r');
This is a simplification as in reality I am loading several hundred .txt files via:
files = dir('Ev_An*.txt');
Important information not present within the .txt files themselves are instead part of the filename.
Is there a way to concisely extract portions of the filename and save them as strings/numbers? For example saving 'OM2' and '5000' from the above filename as variables.
fileparts appears to require the full path of the file rather than just defaulting to the MATLAB folder as with textscan.
It depends on how fixed your filename is. If your filename is in the string filename, then you can use regexp to extract parts of your filename, like so:
filename = 'Ev_An_OM2_l5_5000.txt'; %or whatever
parts = regexp(filename,'[^_]+_[^_]+_([^_]+)_[^_]+_([^\.]+)\.txt','tokens');
This will give you parts{1}=='OM2' and parts{2}=='5000', assuming that your filename is always in the form of
something_something_somethingofinterest_something_somethingofinterest.txt
Update:
If you like structs more than cells, then you can name your tokens like so:
parts = regexp(filename,'[^_]+_[^_]+_(?<first>[^_]+)_[^_]+_(?<second>[^\.]+)\.txt','names');
in which case parts.first=='OM2' and parts.second=='5000'. You can obviously name your tokens according to their actual meaning, since they are important. You just have to change first and second accordingly in the code above.
Update2:
If you use dir to get your filenames, you should have a struct array with loads of unnecessary information. If you really just need the file names, I'd use a for loop like so:
files = dir('Ev_An*.txt');
for i=1:length(files)
filename=files(i).name;
parts = regexp(filename,'[^_]+_[^_]+_(?<first>[^_]+)_[^_]+_(?<second>[^\.]+)\.txt','tokens');
%here do what you want with parts.first, parts.second and the file itself
end
I am having some trouble with a data processing function in MATLAB. The function takes the name of the file to be processed as an input, finds the desired files, and reads in the data.
However, several of the desired files are variants, such as Data_00.dat, Data.dat, or Data_1_March.dat. Within my function, I would like to search for all files containing Data and condense them into one usable file for processing.
To solve this, I would like desiredfile to be converted into a wildcard.
Here is the statement I would like to use.
selectedfiles = dir *desiredfile*.dat % Search for file names containing desiredfile
This returns all files containing the variable name desiredfile, rather than the user input.
The only solution that I can think of is writing a separate function that manually condenses all the variants into one file before my function is run, but I am trying to keep the number of files used down and would like to avoid this.
You could concatenate strings for that. Considering desiredFile as a variable.
desiredFile = input('Files: ');
selectedfiles = dir(['*' desiredfile '*.dat']) % Search for file names containing desiredfile
Enclosing strings between square brackets [string1 string2 ... stringN]concatenates them. Matlab's dir function receives a string.
I believe you can achieve that using the dir command.
dataSets = dir('/path/to/dir/containing/Data*.dat');
dataSets = {dataSets.name};
Now simply loop over them, more information here.
To quote the matlab help:
dir lists the files and folders in the MATLAB® current folder. Results appear in the order returned by the operating system.
dir name lists the files and folders that match the string name. When name is a folder, dir lists the contents of the folder. Specify name using absolute or relative path names. You can use wildcards (*).