Copyfile: WSL directories (\\wsl$Ubuntu\....) as the arguments gives me this error: "The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system."

I downloaded a dataset using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and so the paths start like this: "\\wsl$ubuntu\home\<user_name>\dataset_name\".

I am currently using Matlab 2019a in Windows 10.

I want to use the function copyfile to copy a file from one folder inside the dataset to another, also inside the dataset folder. This is what I tried:

copyfile('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>\inputs\raw\<filename>', '\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>\<output_folder>\')

This is the error I get:

Error using copyfile

The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.

Do you know how to deal with WSL directories using Matlab (R2019a) in Windows?

[Jan]

Remember that the Linux file system is case-sensitive. Is it "\\wsl$\Ubuntu" with an uppercase U? Do you use WSL1 or WSL2?

I assume you have replace <user_name> with the real user name?

What do you see for:

dir('\\wsl$\Ubuntu')

[Márcia Nunes]

It is "\\wsl$\Ubuntu" with an uppercase U, yes (by mistake I wrote with lowercase u and not uppercase U), and I am using WSL2. I replaced <user_name> with the real user name. I copied directly from the Adress bar the directories of the file I wanted to copy and of the folder I wanted it to be copied to, and then tried to use the copyfile function from Matlab.

When I run dir('\\wsl$\Ubuntu') in Matlab command window I see the list of the files I was expecting in that directory.

[Jan]

Fine. Then check the nested folder part by part:

isfolder('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>')
isfolder('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>')
isfolder('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>\inputs\')
isfolder('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>\inputs\raw')
isfile('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>\inputs\raw\<filename>')

isfolder('\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\<user_name>\<dataset_name>\<output_folder>\')

[Márcia Nunes]

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[Márcia Nunes]

I have been trying to use copyfile with other files and I noticed that it does not works for nifti files (.nii) but for others it does. The files I been trying to copy are Nifti files.

[Jan]

This sounds rather strange. The operating system does not know anything about the contents on a file. That the file name ends with ".nii" does not matter in any way. Therefore I'm sure, that there is another problem. Maybe the destination file is already opened by another software?