load files containing part of a string in the file name and the load that file

Hi everyone!

Im kind of new to matlab and I have the following problem: I have many files as .mat files with the following names, all in one folder. So what I want to do is to load all BASF files first and save them into a new BASF folder and then load all BIOG files and save them into a new BIOG folder.

data20091019_1BASF.DE

data20091020_1BASF.DE

data20091021_1BASF.DE

data20091020_1BIOG.DE

data20091022_1BIOG.DE

data20091101_1BIOG.DE

So far, this is what I have tried :

clear all
dirData=dir('*.mat');
filenames={dirData.name};
stringi=filenames;     
for k=1:length(dirData)
  stringi=filenames;
  basf=regexp(stringi,'^dataOut(\d+)_1BASF.DE_rek.mat$','match');
  basf(cellfun(@(basf) isempty(basf),basf))=[]; %get rid of empty cell arrays 
  biog=regexp(stringi,'^dataOut(\d+)_1BIOG_p.DE_rek.mat$','match');
  biog(cellfun(@(biog) isempty(biog),biog))=[];
  load(basf)
end

The problem is when I try to load all the files included in the basf cell array it says " Argument must contain a string". So I dont know how to make matlab load all the files that contain BASF or BIOG in ther file names. Could you please help me? Thank you so much! Lourdes

[Jan]

BTW: basf(cellfun(@(basf) isempty(basf),basf))=[]

Faster: basf(cellfun('isempty', basf))=[]

[Lu]

Thank you Jan for the answer!

It does make it faster! but do you have some ideas on how to make matlab load the files I need? like load just the basf files and then load just biog files?

thank you,

lourdes

Answer 1

[Paulo Silva]

try with this litle change:

load(char(basf))

or this one:

load(basf{:})

[Lu]

Hi Paulo,

Thank you for your answer! I tried both

load(char(basf)) and it gives me the following error message :??? Error using ==> char

Cell elements must be character arrays.

when I try load(basf{:}) it gives me the following error message: ??? Error using ==> load

Argument must contain a string.

I dont have any other ideas on how to make matlab load the files using the filenames contained in the cell arrays of basf and biog. Do you have other ideas? I would really appreciate your help :)

thank you

lourdes

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

You cannot load more than one file in a single command. Please see the FAQ on handling multiple files.