Renaming files in a folder

Hello,

I'm written the following code to rename files in a folder. However, for whatever reason it is not working. Any idea where I've gone wrong?

I assume the program is self-explanatory, but let me know if you need any clarifications on the task.

function renameFiles

path=('D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Data 31052012\75mj\all times\');

files=dir(path)

prefix=('75mJ');

time=0;

for id=3:24;

     newName=([prefix num2str(time) 'ns'])

     movefile(files(id).name, sprintf('%s.bmp',newName));

     time=time+2;

end

Thanks!

[the cyclist]

Please add some detail about what you mean by "not working". Does the code run to completion, but doesn't do what you expect? Or is it crashing and giving an error message? If the latter, on what line does it fail, and what is the error message?

[Walter Roberson]

Your code does not exclude directories in the renaming.

Do not assume that the directories "." and ".." are the first two entries in the list: that is not promised by any of the operating systems that MATLAB runs on.

[A]

Error is:

Error using movefile

No matching files were found.

Error in renameFiles (line 10)

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

The directory name is not included in the .name field returned by dir(). You need to add it back on.

       movefile( fullfile(path, files(id).name), fullfile(path, sprintf('%s.bmp',newName)) );

[A]

Hmm, the program creates a new folder with the proper name, and copies all of the files in the original folder into it. What I would like the program to do is iterate through each file in the folder and assign it a new name. How can I fix my code to do this? Thanks for your help!

[Walter Roberson]

The code you have now (after my change) should already be renaming. There is also nothing in the code you show that would create a directory.

Please show the current version of your function.

[A]

The trouble, I believe, is coming from the first two files "." and "..", as well as the final file "thumbs.db". How can I get around this problem?

[A]

Current code is exactly as above, with your addition. It works well for id>3

[Walter Roberson]

After your line

files=dir(path)

add

files([files.isdir]) = [];

That will get rid of all of the directories, including "." and ".." . You would then use

for id = 1 : length(files)

What do you want done for "thumbs.db" ? What file extension do the original files have? What would you like done for any file that has a different extension?

[A]

Thanks Walter! I iterated through all but the last file number to avoid the thumbs.db file. The rest of the files were .tif

[Walter Roberson]

The easier way to do that would be to use

files = dir( fullfile(path, '*.tif') );

[sravanthi mopati]

I have a similar problem and my code is as shown below. I would like to rename the files in a folder:

if true
  % code
endfilePattern = fullfile('D:/intern/Data', '*.nc');
theFiles = dir(filePattern);
for i = 1:length(theFiles)
[PathStr,FileName,FileExt]=fileparts(theFiles(i).name);disp(FileName)
old = FileName(20:59);
new = "";
FileName = replace(FileName,old,new);
FileName = strcat(FileName,FileExt);disp(FileName)
movefile(fullfile(filePattern,theFiles(i).name),fullfile(filePattern,FileName));
end

I am getting an error: Error using movefile No matching files were found. Any suggestions will be helpful.

[Ade Aulya]

hi.. Mr.Walter Roberson, i was using the code like this and it also were run but i didn't get the name files as i want. if i wanted to change those file's number output into ONLY 1,2,3,4,5,and so on.. what should i do, please ? FYI, i tried to change the folder name like this..

% Get all files in the current folder clear all;

files = dir(fullfile('C:\Users\ASUS\Desktop\2', '*.tif'));

% Loop through each

for id = 1:length(files)

% Get the file name (minus the extension)

[~, f] = fileparts(files(id).name);

% Convert to number

num = str2double(f);

if ~isnan(num)

% If numeric, rename

APath = fullfile('C:\Users\ASUS\Desktop\2', files(id).name);

movefile(APath, sprintf('%d.tif', num));

end

end

and the output files name were like this :

2.100000e+00.tif

2.100100e+00.tif

2.100200e+00.tif

2.100300e+00.tif

2.100400e+00.tif

2.100500e+00.tif

etc..

or if i want to change the output only like

1a

2a

3a

5b

6b

7b

etc..

could you please give me an idea, pease ?

thank you so much :)