User input file directory

I am writing a script that reads all of the files of a certain type in a given directory, and I'm wondering if there is a way to allow the directory location to be a user input.

Currently the code looks like:

directory_in = dir('C:\Folder\Bob\*.dat');

I would like to change it to something more like:

input_in = input('Enter the directory name: ');

directory_in = dir(input_in, '*.dat');

I know this code won't work as written for multiple reasons, but I'm wondering if there is some way I could combine the user input with the file type suffix in order to minimize the amount of editing a future user would need to perform on the script.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

You might try uipickfiles(). http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2010/02/19/file-and-folder-selection-gui/

I'm not a big fan of uigetdir(). It would be better if you could see the files, but had them disabled. I hear all the time from my users that they're confused because they can't see the files in the folders so they aren't sure if they're in the right folder. Of course you could use uigetfile() instead, but the problem with doing that is that it requires the user to pick a file. Not good when you're wanting them to select a folder and not a file. I wish uigetdir() had an option to show files but disabled the user from actually selecting any of them.

[Image Analyst]

I'm not sure I understand why you can't get only .data files like explained in the FAQ http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_process_a_sequence_of_files.3F

startingFolder = pwd; % Whatever.
folder = uigetdir(startingFolder);
% Now get .dat files
filePattern = fullfile(folder, '*.dat');
files = dir(filePattern);
for k = 1 : length(files)
  fullFileName = fullfile(folder, files(k).name);
  fprintf('Now processing file %s...\n', fullFileName);
end

Tell me why the above code makes you say "If I use file_in = uigetdir and then dir(file_in) then I am unable to call only .dat files." Is it because you passed the folder in to dir() instead of a file pattern? Well maybe that's a case to use more descriptive variable names like I did. Is it some other reason?

[Bob Thompson]

At the time of writing my previous comment I was unaware of the 'fullfile' command. So yes, I was just trying to pass the folder into the dir() command. The code you have written would work fine, possibly better than what I have ended up with, and the only real reason I didn't end up using it was because I didn't know enough at the time that I wrote that section of the script.

Thank you for following up on this, and feel free to let me know if you have any other bits of advice.

Answer 2

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

Use uigetdir

Answer 3

[Bob Thompson]

Thanks for the responses.

'uigetdir' is really nice for selecting the directory, however, I did not see the ability to select only certain file types inside of a directory, which caused the resulting structured array to have an incorrect number of files.

'uipickfiles' seems to work better since I can output my file selections as a structured array, however, when I select my files the resulting array contains a number of extra cells relating to the files and folders in the directory the gui first opened. Is there some setting I missed that I need to turn off? I only selected the files I wanted, and my final directory wasn't anywhere near the original, but it still keeps creating selections for the original directory.

Used the code:

files_in = uipickfiles('out','struct');

[Star Strider]

That function seems to be a File Exchange contribution, since I can’t find it in the documentation.

The uigetfile is the only built-in function that seems to be close to it.

[Bob Thompson]

I was looking up 'uigetfile' as well after the mention of 'uipickfiles' but I had some difficulty getting the fopen command to recognize the results as actual files. I will mess around with this some more I think.

Edit: I ended up solving the issue by placing the resulting file names into a structured array.

file_name = uigetfile('*.dat','MultiSelect','on');
file_in = struct('name',file_name);
l = length(file_in);

for i = 1:l
    file = fopen(file_in(i).name);
end

[Image Analyst]

I don't understand. Do you not trust the users to pick the proper files? If not, then you can use dir() to specify the proper file pattern once they've chosen the folder via any of the other functions (uigetdir, uigetfile, or uipickfiles).

[Bob Thompson]

The problem I have been encountering is not with the user's ability, but with each of the functions.

If I use file_in = uigetdir and then dir(file_in) then I am unable to call only .dat files. This would not be a problem if I knew exactly what all the files are in the directory, but since I will not be the future user, I do not know all the files, and do not trust that they will all be in the right order for me to simply tell the script to ignore certain entries ( such as the '.' and '..' files).

If I use the uigetfile input, matlab formats the entries as [file1name, file2name, file3name] which cannot be read by fopen, because fopen seems to need the format ['file1name','file2name','file3name']. Therefore, I used the code in my previous comment to convert the forms.

Finally, using uipickfiles gave me similar problems to dir(), where matlab decided to include all of the files in my current directory into the resulting array, instead of just the files that were actually picked by the user. Once again, since I will not always be the user, I cannot control these extra files and needed to find a way around them.

So, no it's not that I don't trust the user, but I'm trying to prevent the user from being required to change the code in order to get the basic results they want.