Renaming folders

I have many folder within a folder. I want to rename these folders in such a way that a string " 1-4 " is added to the end of all the folders name. And if any folder already has 1-4 at end leave that folder and change the names for others.

Example A1_ A2_ A3_ A4_1-4 A5_

Renamed folders A1_1-4 A2_1-4 A3_1-4 A4_1-4 A5_1-4

Answer 1

[Andrew Newell]

See How do I rename a file programmatically?

[Walter Roberson]

Does that work for folders (directories) ?

[Andrew Newell]

Yes.

Answer 2

[Jarrod Rivituso]

I had a problem just like this once and I found recursion to be very helpful (though you have to of course be careful to avoid infinite recursion).

Here's an example function I just created. It essentially does a depth-first recursion down the directory tree, changing directory names as it goes.

function changeDirNames(dirName)

dirResult = dir(dirName);
allDirs = dirResult([dirResult.isdir]);
allSubDirs = allDirs(3:end);

for i = 1:length(allSubDirs)
    thisDir = allSubDirs(i);
    thisDirName = thisDir.name;
    if ~strcmp(thisDirName(end-2:end),'1-4')
        oldname = fullfile(dirName,thisDir.name);
        newname = [fullfile(dirName,thisDir.name) '1-4'];
        movefile(oldname,newname);
    end
    changeDirNames(newname);
end

To call it, use something like this:

changeDirNames(pwd)

[ch basit]

Thanks a lot

[matlab noob]

If I would like to add 'Patient(1 spacing)' before the exsisting folder name, how do I rewrite the "(3:end)" or "if ~strcmp(thisDirName(end-2:end),'Patient')".

Thank you.