how to rename a bunch of csv files in a folder

Hello,

I have a folder containing several subfolders in which there are bunch of csv files.

I want to rename the csv files in this format. X_Y_subfolder's number_0file's number00. For example, the name of the files in first subfolder and second subfolders should be as following:

Subfolder1) X_Y_1_0100, X_Y_1_0200,...

Subfolder2) X_Y_2_0100, X_Y_2_0200,....

I appreciate any help.

[Jan]

What have you tried so far? What is the problem you have?

[Sara]

Hello,

I have a folder containing several subfolders. I am trying to rename all my csv files in my subfolders in the specific format that I've explained.

[Jan]

Did you try to solve the problem by your own at first? Then please post the existing code and ask a specific question.

You need a dir command to obtain a list of subfolders, then a loop over the subfolders and another dir command to get the file names. Then sprintf will create the new file names and movefile renames the files.

[Sara]

Yes. I've tried dir and movefile but I've got error. I did not use sprintf. I will try this command.

Thanks

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Code is in the FAQ: click here

put a call to movefile() to rename the files.

ALso see attached code to recursivley go through all subfolders.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Another way is to simply use the fileDatastore() function to get a list of all files in all subfolders. In fact, this may be the easiest way, then just loop over the filenames calling movefile().

Answer 3

[Sara]

I rename all files with this code. It is not the best solution nor the professional one, but it works for my case .

Thanks.

S = dir('mymainfolderpath');

a=sum([S(~ismember({S.name},{'.','..'})).isdir]); %%numbers of subfolders

for i = 1:a

n=[(num2str(i))]

cd(fullfile('mymainfolderpath',n)) %% the names of my subfolders are 1,2,...

files=dir('*.csv')

for j = 1:length(files)

name= ['X_Y_',(num2str(i)),'_0',(num2str(j)),'00','.csv']

movefile (files(j).name,name);

end

end

[Stephen23]

It is better to avoid using cd, e.g.

D = 'mymainfolderpath';
S = dir(D);
N = setdiff({S([S.isdir]).name},{'.','..'});
for ii = 1:numel(N)
    T = dir(fullfile(D,N{ii},'*.csv'));
    for jj = 1:numel(T)
        old = fullfile(D,N{ii},T(jj).name);
        new = sprintf('X_Y_%d_0%d00.csv',ii,jj);
        movefile(old,new)
    end
end

Note that with sprintf you can easily change the format of the subfolder/file numbers, e.g. how many digits, leading zeros, etc.

[Sara]

Dear Stephen,

Thanks for your comments. Actually, I am beginner but, whenever I ask a question I learn a lot from the experts.

thanks again for your useful comments