How to continue for loop if file not found?

Hi all,

I'm trying to sort through subfolders on a remote server (i.e there is a folder for each year, and within each year is 12 months, each in their own folder, and then each monthly folder has a file for each day and I am looking at those daily files). So I created some code to sort through each file, but the issue is that there is no files for two of the months. How can I tell the code to skip those years? Here is my code:

path = '/' %just the path to the directory 
finaldata = NaN(37,365);

for year = 1979:2015
    for month = 1:12
        string_year = string(iyear);
        string_month = sprintf('%02d',imonth);
        filepath = path + string_year + '/' + string_month + '/';
        folders = dir(file_path +'*.nc');
        filename = folders.name;
        files = filepath + filename;
        if ~isfile(files)
            continue;
        end
        for day = 1:length(files)
            %some code on data processing
            %x is output of data, which is a single number for each file and then that is put in the empty array
            finaldata(month,day) = x;
        end
    end
end

Here is the section in question:

if ~isfile(files)
    continue;
end

I keep getting an error that says "Insufficent number of outputs from the right hand sign of equal sign to satisfy argument" in reference to the line "filename = folders.name", so I don't think it is working. Thank you!

[jschen1]

I also am worried I have it in the wrong location, so any insight on that would really help!

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

First, "file_path" should be filepath to match the pre-defined variable name 3 lines above.

Second, if the filepath does not exist, folders will be empty,

folders = dir(filepath +'*.nc');

so a better test would be,

folders = dir(file_path +'*.nc');
if ~isempty(folders)  % <---test
    filename = folders.name;
    files = filepath + filename;
    for day = 1:numel(files) % <--- use numel instead of length
        % [ STUFF ]
    end
end

Make sure you're preallocating any loop variables in case iterations are skipped!

[jschen1]

Thank you so much Adam, this worked perfect!