Searching for a file when the filename is always changing

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Hi I am trying to readtable a dat file but the dat filename changes for different situations. Is it possible to readtable the dat file just based on the first few letters of the file?
sample = input('Sample? ', 's');
directory = 'C:\Users\tathuen\Desktop\Data\'
filename = append(directory, sample)
% Count number of location in file
dircontent = dir(filename);
numfolders = sum([dircontent.isdir]) - 2
% For loop to open all the data
for i = 1:numfolders
% Opening each dat files
T1 = readtable(append('C:\Users\tathuen\Desktop\Data\', sample, '\location', num2str(i), '-----\test-----\test1.dat'));
For example, the filename will always be 'location 1 (random letters) \ test (random letters)'. Is it possible to locate the file just based on 'location 1' and 'test'?
Thanks in advance! :)
  2 Comments
Ive J
Ive J on 1 Sep 2021
if your file name always has a certain pattern, yes you can use regexp or pattern to find your file. Example:
filenames = ["this.file.dat", "that.file.dat", "bla.dat", "targetXXXX.dat"]; % different .dat files in the directory
% I'm looking for a dat file starting with "target"
myfile = filenames(startsWith(filenames, "target"))
myfile = "targetXXXX.dat"
Tat Onn Huen
Tat Onn Huen on 2 Sep 2021
i couldnt get this to work as the filenames were random so i couldnt create a filenames = [ ]. thanks for helping!

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Accepted Answer

dpb
dpb on 1 Sep 2021
"the filename will always be 'location 1 (random letters) \ test (random letters)'."
rootdir='C:\Users\tathuen\Desktop\Data\';
fSearch=fullfile(rootdir,'location*','test.*'); % build matching wildcard expression
d=dir(fSearch); % and look for match
for i=1:numel(d)
T1 = readtable(fullfile(d(i).folder.d(i).name);
...
Fix up the sample pattern to match the actual pattern; I didn't try to parse the sample code extremely carefully...

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