Run code on multiple files within a directory?

Hi, hoping someone can help.

I have code that when run within a chosen directory, pops up a dialog box to choose file, to open through uigetfile and it runs through the code and outputs what I need to a .txt file and saves within the same directory. This is only for 1 file though, what I would like to do is for this to run through all the files in a directory in an automated fashion. I have tried a few things but I really can't get this to work and it seems to be due to how I'm using xlsread at the start.

I am using the following to read the data from the file:

[num text raw] = xlsread(uigetfile('*.extension'));

This allows me to easily use things like this to read off various values from headers etc I need:

date = num(3:2);
fileName = text(14:56);

I obviously don't want uigetfile popping up for every file to open but when I remove this I get errors complaining that xlsread can't use wildcards etc.

How can I get it so that my code cycles through all the files, runs my code then stops? I think it's something along these lines (Pseudocode):

% Get directory name
% get filename
% get number of relevant files within directory
% for i=1:number of relevant files
%      run my code
% end

I just can't quite get it. Can someone help?

Answer 1

[per isakson]

Try

    sad = transpose( dir( '*.extension' ) );

    for file = sad
        disp( file.name )
    end

and see

• How can I process a sequence of files?

[Ross]

I think I'm close with this however when I use this code:

    sad = transpose( dir( '*.extension' ) );

for file = sad
        disp( file.name )
        [num text raw] = xlsread(sad);
        my code;
    end

I get this error:

Error using xlsread 
Filename must be a string.

I'm assuming I need to convert the filename to a string? But I'm not sure how using the transpose function.

[Ross]

Ah! I figured it out!

I used this, the structures thing was confusing me:

sad = transpose( dir( '*.extension' ) );

    for file = sad
        disp( file.name )
        FileName = (file.name)
        [num text raw] = xlsread(FileName)
         mycode
    end

And this gives the desired action! Thanks for your help. :)