Running Code On Multiple Files at Once

Hello, I currently have a code that runs on one file: I have a .txt file that is manually loaded into the code as an array (array = load('filename.txt');). Then, the code continues using the specific array that I have manually entered. However, my goal is to get this code to run on an entire folder. I would like to not have to manually enter the file name as the array and instead have to code access a specific folder that contains 100 .txt files and run through the code for each of those files and save the output. The output can either be saved with the addition of '_output' at the end of the filename or keep the same file name and go to a new destination folder (whichever is easiest).

One step further...I am looking to run another code on many more files. For this code, there is a specific folder. Within the folder, there are 100 folders each with 35 .txt files. This code runs on the 35 .txt files and creates an output. However, doing this for all 100 folders takes a long time. Is there a way to have it access the folder, then run the code for each subfolder using the 35 .txt files in each subfolder. The output can be the same as above.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[dpb]

Look at filefun on FEX <apply-a-function-to-files>

Answer 1

[Sharath Chandran]

Hi RB,

You could use following piece of code to achieve your objective:

function get_files(folder)

    if ~exist(folder, 'dir')
        disp('Folder does not exists'); 
        return;
    end

    files = dir(folder);

    for i=3:length(files) % ignore '.' and '..'

        file_path = char(strcat(files(i).folder, filesep, files(i).name));
        array = load(file_path); %#ok<NASGU>    
        disp(file_path);

    end
end

You can modify the above code to first retrieve all the 100 sub-directories in the folder. Then loop over each sub-dir and call the above function to get names of all the present files to store it in the 'array' variable.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any queries or comments on this solution.

Regards,

MathWorks Technical Support.

[Walter Roberson]

The above code is not robust and not portable.

function get_files(folder)

      if ~exist(folder, 'dir')
          disp('Folder does not exists'); 
          return;
      end

      files = dir(folder);
      files([files.isfolder]) = [];
      filenames = fullfile(folder, {files.name} );

      for K = 1 : length(filenames)
          file_path = filenames{K};
          array = load(file_path); %#ok<NASGU>    
          %at this point do something with array
          disp(file_path)
      end
  end