New to coding - Error /.DS_Store (Name is nonexistent or not a directory) on MacBook

Hi all,

I am new to coding with zero prior experience. I have copied an existing code from a PC (expecting it to be plug and play) and it throws up an error saying "x/.DS_Store (Name is nonexistent or not a directory)". I reckon this should be a quick fix for someone who works with Matlab on macs. Please help me to get rid of this problem!

Cheers,

AS

[Geoff Hayes]

@AS - when do you see this error message? Is this when you try to run the code or something else? If something requires this file, then I suppose you could create one. To do this, you can use the terminal application and change directory to your folder x. From there just open the finder as

xxx@MacBook-Pro x % open .

(i.e. write open .) and that should open the Finder and create the .DS_Store folder (or at least it did for me).

[AS]

Thanks @Geoff Hayes

yes I get this error when I try to run the code. I tried your suggestion and unfortunately it did not work. :/

[Geoff Hayes]

@AS - can you post the full error message? Can you confirm if the file is created in your x folder by (again from the terminal) running the command

xxx@MacBook-Pro x % ls -ag

after you have opened the Finder. When I tried this, the .DS_Store file was created.

[AS]

@Geoff Hayes it did not create the .DS_Store file in my x folder.

This is the error I am getting when I run the code:

Error using cd

Cannot CD to /x/.DS_Store (Name is nonexistent or not a directory).

Error in code (line 18)

cd(foldername);

[Geoff Hayes]

@AS - if you put a breakpoint at this line of code

cd(foldername);

what is foldername? Is it a valid path? How is it set? I don't understand why the code would try to change directory to something that is a filename (.DS_Store)...

[AS]

@Geoff Hayes yes, foldername is a valid path. The code works like a charm on other systems.

[Geoff Hayes]

@AS - can you show some of the code that is calling cd? I'm just curious why it it doing that. Else, you can add code like @Image Analyst shows below to skip this file (which is specific to Mac and so that may be why you aren't seeing this on the Windows platform).

[Stephen23]

"cd(foldername);"

Someone wrote slow fragile code that:

• uses CD() when using absolute/relative filenames is more robust and more efficient,
• iterates over everything that DIR() returns, without using a suitable match string or filtering the results (e.g. based on the ISDIR property), i.e. fragile/buggy code (as your experience using it demonstrates).

Basically you should NOT learn from this code.

[AS]

Hi all, the code now works after asking it to ignore the "DS_store" file. A colleage helped me integrate that into the existing code. Many thanks!

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

I think that's just some sort of system bookkeeping file on Macs. It's not a file you'd ever want to process in any way so just skip it in your loop:

folder = pwd; % wherever you want
fileList = dir(fullfile(folder, '*.*'))]
% If you want all the names put one cell array:
allFileNames = fullfile({fileList.folder}, {fileList.name})'
% Now files are listed in the order you called dir().
% If you want the list sorted alphabetically:
allFileNames = sort(allFileNames)
for k = 1 : numel(allFileNames)
    thisFileName = allFileNames{k};
    if contains(thisFileName, 'DS_Store')
        % Skip this kind of file.
        continue;
    end
    % If it gets here, the file is good so process it.
end

[AS]

@Image Analyst thanks. My brain is fried now, I will try this first thing on Monday.

[Walter Roberson]

My guess is that the current code does a dir() and assumes that it can cd() to every name it finds there. Rather than special-casing that one name, the code should check whether the name is a directory before trying to cd()

In the longer term, it is typically better to use fullfile() to construct fully qualified names instead of using cd() at all.

[AS]

The code now works after asking it to ignore the "DS_store" file. A colleage helped me integrate that into the existing code. Many thanks!

[Image Analyst]

OK since my solution of skipping that particular file worked, could you please click the "Accept this answer" link? Thanks in advance. 🙂

[AS]

All done! Thanks again!