Loading files from the folder

Hello,

I have this code which allows the user to select any folder on the computer and then loads all the .mat files to the directory.

%% Data Acuisition from the folder%%%
pathname = uigetdir;
allfiles = dir(fullfile(pathname,'*.mat'));
out = load(allfiles(1).name);

% load all files in a struct so they can accessed later on
for k = 2: numel(allfiles)
    out(k) = load(allfiles(k).name);
end
 

I want to make changes to it such that, user is able to select some files from the folder and not all of them to be loaded to matlab directory..

Does any one know how can we do it ?

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

hamzah - could you use uigetfile and allow the user to select the files that they are interested in?

[file,path] = uigetfile('*.mat',...
   'Select One or More Files', ...
   'MultiSelect', 'on');

[Chris Dan]

how this will work out? can you please write the full code?

how will I access the data of those files?

[Geoff Hayes]

You could try to see what happens but I think that you could do something like

[file,path] = uigetfile('*.mat',...
   'Select One or More Files', ...
   'MultiSelect', 'on');
out = {};
for k = 1:length(file)
    out{k} = load(fullfile(path, file{k}));
end

[Chris Dan]

thanks :)

Instead of cell array, we can also declare a struct..?

[Chris Dan]

Geoff Hayes

Hi, If I am selecting just one file from the folder, I am getting this error

"Brace indexing is not supported for variables of this type."

Do you kno about it ?

[Geoff Hayes]

hamzah - it sounds like you'll need a special case for if there is just one file selected in which case file is not a cell array but probably just a string (array of characters).

[files,pathToFiles] = uigetfile('*.mat',...
   'Select One or More Files', ...
   'MultiSelect', 'on');
out = {};

if ~iscell(files)
    out{1} = load(fullfile(pathToFiles, files));
else
    for k = 1:length(files)
        out{k} = load(fullfile(pathToFiles, files{k}));
    end
end

[Chris Dan]

Geoff Hayes

Okay, Thanks :)

I am trying to make function which I can call any where to open the folder

Will this work?

out = DataLoading(uigetfile);
function [out] = DataLoading(uigetfile)
[files,pathToFiles] = uigetfile('*.mat',...
   'Select One or More Files', ...
   'MultiSelect', 'on');
out = {};
if ~iscell(files)
    out{1} = load(fullfile(pathToFiles, files));
else
    for k = 1:length(files)
        out{k} = load(fullfile(pathToFiles, files{k}));
    end
end
end

[Geoff Hayes]

I don't undertstand the purpose of including the uigetfile in the signature

function [out] = DataLoading(uigetfile)

This input parameter is unnecessary.