How do I use chunks from strsplit in Matlab to save along with my data in a text file?

I have a list of over 600 files that I would like to extract the information from the file name and put it into the text file along with the information in the file itself.

Example:

name of file:

p01.male.cond.1.loud.txt

info in file:

0.015         120     50
0.12          121     52
0.23          119     53
0.4           122     59

I would like the file to look like this:

p01   male   cond  1  loud  0.015   120     50
p01   male   cond  1  loud  0.12    121     52
p01   male   cond  1  loud  0.23    119     53
p01   male   cond  1  loud  0.4     122     59

I used strsplit to extract the names from the file name but I do not know how to use the chunks from strsplit to put into a data file. PLEASE HELP!!! the code needs to be general enough to apply to the 600 files that I have that all have a similar name structure but different names and different file contents.

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

You would basically loop over your files, read the content, add the prefix (see tudor's answer and related comments) to each line, and rewrite (preferably to a different file to eliminate the risk of losing data). Something like:

%filenames: a cell array of file names (strings). Possibly obtained with dir
%folder: the full path of the folder containing the files (string).

for fileindex = 1:numel(filenames)
   testconditions = strsplit(filename{fileindex}, '.');
   prefix = strjoin(testconditions(1:end-1), '\t');
   fin = fopen(fullfile(folder, filename{fileindex}), 'rt');
   fout = fopen(fullfile(folder, ['modified -', filename{fileindex}]), 'wt');
   tline = fgetl(fid);
   while ischar(tline)
       if ~isempty(tline) 
          fprintf(fout, '%s\t', prefix);
       end
       fprintf(fout, '%s\n', tline);
   end
   fclose(fin);
   fclose(fout);
end

Answer 2

[tudor dima]

% try this

>> prefix = regexprep(filename,'\.','\t')

prefix = p01    male    cond    1       loud    txt

[Walter Roberson]

Easier:

filename(filename == '.') = sprintf('\t');

This works because tab is just a single character, char(9)

[Guillaume]

Except that both these solution keep the original extension that is not wanted.

testconditions = strsplit(filename, '.');
prefix = strjoin(testconditions(1:end-1), '\t')

would make more sense