How to transfer folder structure to struct data?

I have big data inside some folder structure.

I need transfer almost whole(bold path) folder structure in my final struct file with data.

Question is: How to do it better than it is? I know I have 'dir' function but how to use it more smart in my case..

Structure like this:

C:\...\folders\release\mode\const\var\...\... .txt

folders=dir(path);
datas=struct;
s_fol=size(folders,1);
for ii=3:s_fol
    cd(path);
    if isfolder(folders(ii).name)                       
        fol_now=folders(ii).name;
        datas.(fol_now)=struct;
        datas.(fol_now).Released=struct;
        mode_folder=dir(strcat(path,{'\'},folders(ii).name,{'\Released'}));
        s1_fol=size(mode_folder,1);
        for ii1=3:s1_fol
            cd(strcat(path,{'\'},folders(ii).name,{'\Released'}))
            if isfolder(mode_folder(ii1).name)
                mode_fol_now=mode_folder(ii1).name;
                datas.(fol_now).Released.(mode_fol_now)=struct;
                datas.(fol_now).Released.(mode_fol_now).dyn=struct;
                var_fol=dir(strcat(path,{'\'},folders(ii).name,{'\Released\'},mode_fol_now,{'\dyn'}));
                s2_fol=size(var_fol,1);
                for ii2=3:s2_fol
                    cd(strcat(path,{'\'},folders(ii).name,{'\Released\'},mode_fol_now,{'\dyn'}))
                    if isfolder(var_fol(ii2).name)
                        var_fol_now=var_fol(ii2).name;
                        datas.(fol_now).Released.(mode_fol_now).dyn.(var_fol_now)=struct;
                        actual_name=strcat(path,{'\'},folders(ii).name,{'\Released\'},mode_fol_now,{'\dyn\'},var_fol_now);
                        cd(actual_name)
                        if exist('config.m', 'file') == 2 
                            % PROCESSING DATA & STORE IN STRUCT
                        end
                    end
                end
            end
        end
    end
end                     

[Stephen23]

"How to do it better than it is?"

• Do not use cd.
• Use fullfile instead of string concatenation.
• Use the isdir field rather than calling isfolder.
• Avoid exist if you can, e.g. the files return by dir exist by definition of that function.
• Avoid nested structures (they are tedious to access data in).
• Avoid putting meta-data (e.g. folder names) into code (e.g. as fieldnames).

Note that with MATLAB >=R2016b you could probably do most of this with one dir call, using the new wildcard syntax. What MATLAB version are you using?

[Eduard Mazur]

I use latest MATLAB version but need compability with R2018b.

I agree with you, but how it can be done with minimal dir calling?

[Jan]

The question is not clear. For which .txt files are you looking? Does the existance of a config.m file is the specified folder matter?

[Eduard Mazur]

It doesn't matter, processing .txt inside core program.

existance config.m in defined folder -- condition for run core program.

I just intresting in creating folder structure like in windows

[Jan]

I do not understand the 3 sentences of this comment.

What is a "core program" and which ".txt" files are processed by what?

How can this information be used: "existance config.m in defined folder -- condition for run core program"?

In which windows? A folder structure can be found in the file system. Are you sure that it is useful to copy this structure to a nested struct?

Answer 1

[Jan]

It does not sound like a good design to use the folder names as field names. Keeping the names in a cell string might be smarter:

data(k).value     = rand(10);
data(k).condition = {'folders', 'release', 'mode', 'const', 'var'};

Deeply nested structs are rarely useful for processing. But if you have a good reason to do so:

% Get all config.m files recursively (It is just a guess, that you need this):
BasePath = 'C:\Temp\';
FileList = dir(fullfile(BasePath, '**\config.m'));
data     = struct([]);
for iFile = 1:numel(FileList)
    Folder = FileList(iFile).path(numel(BasePath)+1:end);
    Keys   = strsplit(Folder, filesep);
    data.(Keys{1}).(Keys{2}).(Keys{3}).(Keys{4}).(Keys{5}) = ???
end

[Eduard Mazur]

Thank you, this seems like the best solution.