How to use DIR to extract file data (name, date, location/a​ddress/tra​nsit) from multiple folders and subfolders?

Hi everyone,

I've read other posts regarding dir but they didn't seem to help me. I'm trying to use dir to get a structure containing file names, dates, and locations and then export it into an excel file. The issue I have been having is that I can't seem to automate this and have to manually move my .m file to each folder of interest and run it in order to gather this information. I'm not sure how to move down each folder and then return to repeat the process automatically. This is what I have right now, but I'm fairly new to this.

x=dir;
writetable(struct2table(x), 'test.xlsx')

So my question is: How can I search through multiple folders and their subfolders for documents and gather this info and put it into a structure that can be exported as an excel sheet?

Here is an example of the folder of interest (crossed out names for security purposes). Each of these files has multiple subfolders, each containing documents and more subfolders. Thanks!

[dpb]

There are several recursive dir routines on FEX.

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

x=dir(fullfile(MyFolder,'**/*.*')) will give you all the files and folders in MyFolder and all its subfolders.

[dpb]

Slick! Wasn't aware of that syntax at least for Windoes; does it work with other OS if use proper filesep?

I'd always been unhappy that couldn't pass switches to the underlying OS version so always had done the specific recursion.

[Guillaume]

The recursive dir syntax was introduced in R2016b and is OS independent.

[Fangjun Jiang]

Guillaume is right. It is available only at R2016b and later.

[rbme17]

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for! I would like to add that the file name needs to be quoted with apostrophes:

x=dir(fullfile('MyFolder','**/*.*'))

[dpb]

" the file name needs to be quoted with apostrophes"

Only if is character literal; if MyFolder is a variable it can not be quoted.