unix command in for loop

I'm trying to execute a shell command using the unix command within a for loop. The first part of the code deals with dumping a list of files into a .txt file named firstfile.txt. The part that is giving me trouble is specifically in the unix command portion of the code. The code is below.

filename=importdata('firstfiles.txt'); %importing list of files as an array

filename1=char(filename); %converting to character

for 1:length(filename);
  filename2=filename1(i);
command1='simpleTranslate -z --outstyle=2 -q0 -n5000 filename2 > test.txt';
[x,y]=unix(command1);
more code that isn't relevant to this problem % code
end

The simpleTranslate portion of the command1 is a custom linux code that I'm calling on, but the primary problem is the filename2 variable. I don't know how to get the unix command to step through each file name within the filename2 array. Any insights into this problem would be very appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

[Ken Atwell]

Your command line being sent to unix() includes the string 'filename2', not the value of filename2. Try:

 command1= ['simpleTranslate -z --outstyle=2 -q0 -n5000 ' filename2 '  > test.txt'];

Answer 2

[Sean]

Thanks! that helped alot!

[Ken Atwell]

Glad to hear it, please accept the answer. :)