Can't open files

Hi,

I'm not really familiar with MATLAB, but I need it to extract some information for my project.

I'm using a code (CGITA) that aimes to open and analys medical images (DICOM).

But I'm not able to open these images as I got the following error:

Unable to perform assignment because dot indexing is not supported for variables of this type.
Error in parse_directory_for_dicom (line 97)
            fileinfo.PatientName.GivenName = 'N/A';

Error in CGITA_GUI>load_Primary_btn_Callback (line 450)
    [filelist fusion_filelist] = parse_directory_for_dicom(Primary_dir);

Error in gui_mainfcn (line 95)
        feval(varargin{:});

Error in CGITA_GUI (line 42)
    gui_mainfcn(gui_State, varargin{:});

Error in
matlab.graphics.internal.figfile.FigFile/read>@(hObject,eventdata)CGITA_GUI('load_Primary_btn_Callback',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))
 
Error while evaluating UIControl Callback.

Appreciate your help.

[Rik]

Can you provide a link to the code you're using? And what release are you using? Have you tried using the debugger to determine the data type of the variables around this line of code?

[Nora A]

I'm using R2018a

function varargout = parse_directory_for_dicom(dirname);

all_files_list = list_all_files(dirname, {}, '');

%cd(handles.dicom_folder);

% % Alternative option
% dirname = get(handles.original_dir,'String');
% if ~isdir(dirname)
%     errordlg('This is not a valid folder');
%     return;
% end

%a = dir(dirname);
study_ID = [];  % create empty cell array
study_description_name = {};
% description_location = {};
%b = ls(dirname);
%dirlen = length(b)-2; % must subtract "." & ".." 2 elements
dirlen = length(all_files_list);
filelist = {};
if dirlen ==0
    return;
end

do_fields_table= [8 4158; 8 49; 8 32; 8 4144; 32 16; 8 8487; 16 16; 8 16; 32 13];
dicomdict('set', 'dicom-dict_truncated.txt');

%tic
timing_n = floor(dirlen/20);

h = waitbar(0,'Parsing the directory for DICOM files. Please wait...');
steps = dirlen;

for i = 1:dirlen
    %dicomread = fullfile(handles.dicom_folder, a(i+2).name);
    %info = dicominfo(all_files_list{i});
    if mod(i, timing_n) == 0
        waitbar(i / steps);
    end
    if exist('dcmreadfile')
        info = [];
        try
            info = dcmreadfile(all_files_list{i});
        catch EM
        end
    else
        info = dicominfo_Dean_rev(all_files_list{i}, do_fields_table);
    end
    
    %if ~isempty(info) && isfield(info, 'StudyID')
    if ~isempty(info) && isfield(info, 'StudyInstanceUID') 
        %warndlg('No dicom files found');
    %else
        %find_location = strcmp(study_ID, info.StudyID);  % "find(study_ID == info.StudyID)" is unavailable because info.StudyID is a string
        find_location = strcmp(study_ID, info.StudyInstanceUID);  % "find(study_ID == info.StudyID)" is unavailable because info.StudyID is a string
        if sum(find_location) == 0
            % new ID for the ID List
            %study_ID{end+1} = info.StudyID;
            study_ID{end+1} = info.StudyInstanceUID;
            find_location = length(study_ID);
            study_description_name{find_location}.description{1} = info.SeriesDescription;
            study_description{find_location}.description{1}.filename{1} = all_files_list{i};
        else
            % ID already exists in list
            if isfield(study_description{find_location}, 'description')
                description_location = find(strcmp(study_description_name{find_location}.description, info.SeriesDescription));
                if isempty(description_location)
                    study_description_name{find_location}.description{end+1} = info.SeriesDescription;
                    study_description{find_location}.description{end+1}.filename{1} = all_files_list{i};
                else
                    study_description{find_location}.description{description_location}.filename{end+1} = all_files_list{i};
%                     study_description_name{find_location}.description{description_location} = info.SeriesDescription;
                end
            else
                study_description_name{find_location}.description{1} = info.SeriesDescription;
                study_description{find_location}.description{1}.filename{1} = all_files_list{i};
            end
        end
    end
    
end
close(h)

dicomdict('factory');

table_content = {};
datatable = {};
for i = 1:length(study_ID)
    for j = 1:length(study_description_name{i}.description)
        if exist('dcmreadfile')
            fileinfo = dcmreadfile(study_description{i}.description{j}.filename{1});
        else
            fileinfo = dicominfo(study_description{i}.description{j}.filename{1});
        end
        if ~isfield(fileinfo.PatientName, 'GivenName')
            fileinfo.PatientName.GivenName = 'N/A';
        end
        if ~isfield(fileinfo.PatientName, 'FamilyName')
            fileinfo.PatientName.FamilyName = 'N/A';
        end
        
        if ~isfield(fileinfo, 'SeriesTime')
            datatable(end+1,:) = {study_description{i}.description{j}.filename, []};
            fileinfo.SeriesTime = 'N/A';
        else
            datatable(end+1,:) = {study_description{i}.description{j}.filename, fileinfo.SeriesTime};
        end
        
        table_content(end+1,:) = {false, false, fileinfo.PatientID, fileinfo.PatientName.FamilyName, fileinfo.PatientName.GivenName, study_ID{i}, study_description_name{i}.description{j}, fileinfo.StudyDate, fileinfo.SeriesTime, ...
            length(study_description{i}.description{j}.filename), false};
        
    end
end

if size(datatable,1) == 1
    % simple case. Return the list.
    filelist = study_description{1}.description{1}.filename;
else
    [filelist fusion_filelist] = DICOM_selection_GUI(datatable, table_content, fileinfo, study_ID, study_description);
end

varargout{1} = filelist;
if exist('fusion_filelist')
    varargout{2} = fusion_filelist;
else
    varargout{2} = '';
end

return;

[Rik]

This code seems very much a work in progress. There is a lot of commented code, and not all comments accurately describe what the code is doing.

The Image Processing Toolbox function dicominfo apparently has a different output from that custom function dcmreadfile. The code below should reproduce your error.

clc
clear fileinfo
fileinfo.PatientName='foo';
if ~isfield(fileinfo.PatientName, 'GivenName')
    fileinfo.PatientName.GivenName = 'N/A';
else
    disp('condition returned false')
end

This example shows the probable root cause: fileinfo.PatientName is already a char array, instead of a struct, as that assignment assumes.

[mahmoud hafez]

This code old work and agree with old Matlab version, so, you can use an older version of MATLAB to avoid this error.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try changing the first few lines of the function to this

function varargout = parse_directory_for_dicom(dirname)
dirListing = dir(fullfile(dirname, '*.dcm'));
all_files_list = fullfile(dirname, {dirListing.name})