find the difference of two structure elements

Hello,

I'm trying to list files in a directory and categorize them. The files have the naming convention as follow:

Slow3C(20150721-1245).txt             
Slow3CGO(20150721-1245).txt       
Slow3CLMMax(20150721-1245).txt        
Slow3CLMMin(20150721-1245).txt      
Slow3CTC(20150721-1245).txt       
Slow3CTrig(20150721-1245).txt

What I did is:

daq_files=dir('*(*).txt'); % all DAQ files
TCdaq_files=dir('*TC(*).txt'); % all TC files
GOdaq_files=dir('*GO(*).txt'); % all GO files
LMMindaq_files=dir('*LMMin(*).txt'); % all LMMin files
LMMaxdaq_files=dir('*LMMax(*).txt'); % all LMMax files
Trigdaq_files=dir('*Trig(*).txt'); % all Trig files
maindaq_files=

which gives a list of all the files, and put the filenames with TC, GO, etc.. in their own structure. I want the maindaq_files to be Slow3C(20150721-1245).txt, so I'm trying to figure out if I can find the difference between daq_files.name element and all the other variables'.name element, but I'm a little stuck. Is ther a way to do this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Jos (10584)]

help setdiff

First put the names of the files into a cell array.

A = {daq_files.name} ;
B = {TCdaq_files.name} ;

Using the indices returned by setdiff you can select the elements from the original structure arrays returned by dir.

[~,ia,ib] = setdiff(A,B) ;
daq_files = daq_files(ia) ;

Something along these lines should work for you :-)

Answer 2

[Jon]

Have a look at http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/243404

Answer 3

[Jon]

Also this should work except you should use "()" instead of "_" : http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/46760-extracting-number-value-from-string-from-string-using-sscanf

Answer 4

[Max Bernstein]

Thanks Jos for your help, I figured it out using your hint. What I did was:

Alldaq_files=dir('*(*).txt'); % all DAQ files
TCdaq_files=dir('*TC(*).txt'); % all TC files
GOdaq_files=dir('*GO(*).txt'); % all GO files
LMMindaq_files=dir('*LMMin(*).txt'); % all LMMin files
LMMaxdaq_files=dir('*LMMax(*).txt'); % all LMMax files
Trigdaq_files=dir('*Trig(*).txt'); % all Trig files

All = [{TCdaq_files.name} {GOdaq_files.name} {LMMindaq_files.name} {LMMaxdaq_files.name} {Trigdaq_files.name}];
maindaq_files = setdiff({Alldaq_files.name},All, 'rows');

Jon I tried using what you suggested before but it wouldnt work because sometimes the filename changes so it's difficult to use a "constant" separator format such as \w-\w etc... Thanks a lot for your help though!