Importdata Command not accepting input argument

Hello, Well I know this should be a pretty simple task, but I have been unable to use the importdata command. what I have is this

>> FILENAMES{j}

ans =

'L1S11_0_0.mat'

>> importdata(FILENAMES{j})
??? Error using ==> importdata at 136
Unable to open file.

The file is there because when I use the command in this way

>> importdata('L1S11_0_0.mat')

ans = 

               cycles: 0
                 load: 0
              comment: 'Baseline'
            condition: 'Baseline'
            path_data: [1x252 struct]
      straingage_data: [1x1 struct]
            XRay_data: [1x1 struct]

It works perfectly.

I have +100 files to import and I cant simply write the names manually each time with every importdata command.

Can you say what could I be doing wrong?

By the way: I am using Matlab R2010a

Thanks

[Margarita]

when I run the line

strcmp(FILENAMES{j}, 'L1S11_0_0.mat')

It returns a "0". They should be the same so why is matlab taking them as different? (The difference is in the presence or lack of the '' sign)

Answer 1

[Niklas Nylén]

Filenames seems to be a cell of cells, you can tell from ans being 'L1S11_0_0.mat' rather than just L1S11_0_0.mat. This should work:

importdata(FILENAMES{j}{1})

[Margarita]

Yes indeed FILENAMES is a cell but using your suggestion still yields no result...

>> class(FILENAMES)

ans =

cell

>> importdata(FILENAMES{j}{i})
??? Cell contents reference from a non-cell array object.

[Niklas Nylén]

{1}, not {i}.

[Margarita]

sorry it was a typo, I did write {1} instead of {i}.

I have also tried to create a temp variable such as namefile='L1S11_0_0.mat' an use the command as importdata(namefile) but it is still showing the same error

[Niklas Nylén]

Using your example works well for me. Are you sure that the mat file is in your Matlab path?

[Margarita]

yes I am sure, I verified it with the "dir" and it is there. I am starting to think that I have some kind of different setting in my computer, but I can't find what it is. From logic what is written in the example should be working.

[Margarita]

Any ideas of how could I refer this problem? Matlab is not taking the variables to have the same value (FILENAMES and 'L1SS1_0_0')

[Niklas Nylén]

what happens if you run

 exist(FILENAMES{j}{1},'file')