Error using save Cannot create '_' because '_____' does not exist.

I have some data in a cell array,

data2={[50,1;49,1;26,1];...
    [36,2;12,2;37,2;24,2;47.3,2];}

and names in another cell array,

names2={'xxx/01-ab-07c-0fD3/0';'xxx/01-ab-07s-0fD3/6';}

I want to extract a subset of the data,

data2_subset=data2{1,:}(:,1);

then a temporary file name,

tempname2=char(names2(2));

an save the subset to a text file with

save (tempname2, 'data2_subset', '-ASCII');

But I get this error message: _

Error using save
Cannot create '6' because 'xxx/01-ab-07s-0fD3' does not exist.

To try to understand what is happening, I created a mock dataset with simpler names:

names={'12-05';'14-03'};
data={[50,1;29,1;25,1];[35,2;22,2;16,2;38,2];[40,3;32,3;10,3;44,3;43,3];};
data_subset=data{1,:}(:,1);
tempname=char(names(2));
save (tempname, 'data_subset', '-ASCII');

in which case the save command works properly.

Unfortunately I still do not understand what the problem is in the first case. Any suggestions as to what is happening, and possible solutions?

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

MATLAB is interpreting the "/" characters as separators in a directory structure. It is looking for a directory and subdirectory

xxx/01-ab-07s-0fD3

[Matteo Niccoli]

Ok, thank you. One very simple solution is to change the format by replacing all slashes with dashes. Is there any other way, similar to escaping in Python?

[Matteo Niccoli]

This was suggested on stackoverflow:

tempname3= strrep(tempname2,'/','_');
save (tempname3, 'data2_subset', '-ASCII');

[the cyclist]

I'm not sure what you want to do. You can't make MATLAB write that filename, because the operating system won't allow a filename with slashes in it. Right?

[Matteo Niccoli]

You are right, there is no other solution than replacing those slashes.