Generic code to import data from set of txt files?

I have a set of text files that have a 1x6 vector of data in each. The names of the text files are based on timestamps and are not periodic. I'd like to be able to put some variable number N of these text files into a folder, and then have a script that will load the vector from each text file into the nth row of a data matrix in MATLAB. Is there a way to do this for variable number of arbitrarily named txt files? I imagine a code like this:

N = {a command to count the number of txt files in directory}
data=zeros(N,6)
for i = 1:N
  data(i,:) = {command to load data from the ith txt file in the directory}
end

So I am trying to see if there are MATLAB commands to do this generically without having to specify specific number of txt files or their names each time I compile a set of them into the directory.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Paul]

you could use the commands here:

http://www.mathworks.co.uk/help/matlab/ref/dir.html

to get the file names. Then loop over these names importing one by one.

Answer 2

[kjetil87]

To find all .txt files in a directory use:

myDir = 'C:\iHaveStoredSomethingHere\';  %last backspace is important!

dirInfo = dir([myDir,'*.txt']);

filenames = {dirInfo.name};

N = numel(filenames);

data=cell(N,1);  %need to use cell, you are not  100% sure all files has same lengths etc.

for i=1:N
    fid = fopen([myDir,filenames{i}] );
    data{i} = textscan(fid,'%s ');
    fclose(fid);
end