how to get the string inside exist ?

Hi, I wanted to search the file names sequentially inside a directory (Note:I haven't included its logic here). Right now my concern is how to read the string '1.png' inside the command 'exist'. so that fname will return a 0 or 2. Thank you.

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val=1;

tmp=strcat(num2str(val),{'.png'});

% now how do i read this tmp inside exist. when i tried as shown below, i get: Undefined function 'exist' for input arguments of type 'cell'.

fname=exist(strcat(num2str(val),{'.png'}),'file');

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Answer 1

[kjetil87]

exist([num2str(val),'.png'],'file')

[kjetil87]

the error you get is because you put .png inside a cell. You can also use strcat as you did but remove

{}

Also i find it weird that you call the output of exist fname, the return of exist(...,'file') is just a number indicating what type of file see help exist , or 0 if the file is not found.

[Rakesh Praveen]

actually there are 1000s of .png files named numerically in a directory. one of the file in between got renamed accidentally. Now i do not know the original name of this renamed file. so i thought i will run the 'for' loop and when the missing file number turns up, 'exist' will return a zero and the loop breaks and that is the location of this renamed file.