Detecting new .txt file in a folder how can i read all the files through fileread command

Let's say i have 3 .txt files in a folder given path, How can i read it all as the following is giving me the error

folder= 'C:\Users\nha4abt\Desktop\Alarm_Script';    %folder location to get the .txt file
olddir=dir([folder filesep '**/*.txt' ]);           %Only check the .txt file
l=length(olddir);
nameslist={olddir.name}
y= fileread(namelist(1))

Answer 1

[Paul Shoemaker]

Ahmad,

Hard to say exactly what the issue is without having more information, but it looks like your "nameslist" variable is only using the file name, and is not including the full path to each file. Unless that folder containing your txt files is on your Matlab path, Matlab will not be able to find them with just the filename.

Take a look at defining nameslist as follows and see if it solves your problem.

nameslist=strcat({olddir.folder},filesep,{olddir.name}); % FULL file name, including folder

Also, it looks like you need curly braces to access your fileread command, like so:

y= fileread(nameslist{1}); % nameslist is a cell, so get text using curly braces

Paul Shoemaker

http://www.matlabinvesting.com

[ARN]

Thanks, i was having trouble with accessing the cell, which was done by curly bracket (i was using small brackets). There is no problem with folder location as it was defined on first line.

Answer 2

[Stephen23]

You used the wrong kind of indexing, because if nameslist is a cell array then parentheses returns a cell array:

y = fileread(namelist(1))
                     ^^^ parentheses!

You need to use curly braces to access the contents of a cell array:

y = fileread(namelist{1})

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/access-data-in-a-cell-array.html

It is recommended to use fullfile rather than concatenate strings, e.g.:

dir(fullfile(folder,'**/*.txt'));