Adding a pathdef.m file, as a string, to the current path

Hello,

I have saved a pathdef file ('pathdef_etc.m') which contains the paths that I need for a given project. I simply want to get the string output from this pathdef file, so that I can add it to my current path using 'addpath( path_string )'.

How can I get this pathdef file as a string?

Thank you

[Charles Pace]

I am looking for something like...

*from the directory containing the pathdef file*

display(pathdef.m),

so that I can type addpath(ans)

[Walter Roberson]

What is the file format? Did you create it with savepath ?

Are the individual paths separated by colon or by newlines?

Is this for Windows or (not Windows) ?

Answer 1

[Jorg Woehl]

You probably want to use textscan for this:

fileID = fopen('pathdef_etc.m')
C = textscan(fileID, '%s', 'Delimiter', '\n')
fclose(fileID)

The output is a single cell containing a n-by-1 cell array of character vectors (one per line in the input file). So C{1}{1} contains the first line of your file, C{1}{2} the second, and so on. You could then set up a loop to add each line to the path:

for i=1:size(C{1},1)
    addpath(C{1}{i})
end

Hope this helps!

[Charles Pace]

Hi, thank you for the answer! I will give this a try.

It is just that I think there is a really straightforward answer. I saw it implemented once, I just can't remember how. It was almost as simple as just clicking the pathdef file in the file explorer, then addpath(ans) or something like that.

When I click the pathdef.m file, it opens up a function p=pathdef , which includes the pathdef search results (all the folders in path), and in the header says..

% PATHDEF returns a string that can be used as input to MATLABPATH

% in order to set the path.

Which makes me think it should be simpler, without any parsing or looping.

However, your help/code has gotten me halfway there so thanks alot! This may work fine.

[Charles Pace]

I just figured it out actually. It was really simple. I just needed to find the pathdef file in the explorer, right click -> 'run',

then the path appeared in command window as one really long string.. 'ans = path1, path2, etc .... '

then just addpath(ans).

Thank you for your help though.

[Rik]

That suggests you can use this as well:

addpath(pathdef);