How to simplify code which reads multiple files

Hello,

I have a script which runs through multiple csv files based on a query:

filePattern = fullfile(myFolder, '*ABC*.csv');
theFiles = dir(filePattern);

for k = 1 : length(theFiles)
    baseFileName = theFiles(k).name;
    fullFileName = fullfile(myFolder, baseFileName);
    
    %Rest of my code goes here
end

However, I also want it to run through files labelled 'DEF' and also run the same chunk of code that comes after the following line.

fullFileName = fullfile(myFolder, baseFileName);

I wasn' t sure how to simply this so I ended up just copying and pasting the entire code while just changing the first line to another query:

i.e.

filePattern = fullfile(myFolder, '*DEF*.csv');

This definitely isn't efficient by any means so I was hoping to get some insight in any way possible to reduce the clutter.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

You don't need to repeat the entire code, just the dir call is enough:

theFiles = [...
    dir(fullfile(myFolder, '*ABC*.csv'));...
    dir(fullfile(myFolder, '*DEF*.csv'))];

[Nom]

Thank you for your answer, this worked!

I switched over to this method because of its simplicity.

Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

You can initially list all files with a given extension and then eliminate any files that do not contain one of the strings listed. This solution uses contains(), released in r2016b.

% Get all files with given extension
filePattern = fullfile(myFolder, '*.csv');
theFiles = dir(filePattern);

% Isolate files with a matching pattern
filenameOptions = {'ABC','DEF'};
matchIdx = contains({theFiles.name},filenameOptions);
theFiles(~matchIdx) = []; % Eliminate all non-matched files