stringcmp filenames with similar naming

Hello:

Is there a good way to match files from different folders together?

I am considering using stringcmp, to load two different files together, but I am not sure how to approach this. Would you first use a for loop for recursion to search all folders and files one string character at a time? If so, what would be the matlab syntax?

[Matt J]

There is no native Matlab function called stringcmp. Perhaps you meant strcmp

Do you mean you have a collection of folders and you want to see which ones contain identically named files? If not, please give an example of the input and desired output.

[LabRat]

Hi Matt, yes I am looking to match files with a portion of the string matching from both files. I found the 'contains' and 'strfind' functions so far. Still working on how to use these correctly.

Answer 1

[Voss]

"Is there a good way to match files from different folders together?"

Here's an approach using dir, fullfile, fileparts, strcat, and intersect that does what it seems like you are asking for:

% create some txt files in two directories:
rng(1000); % (for reproducibility of the random file names)
dirs = {'folder_1','folder_2/subfolder'};
for ii = 1:numel(dirs)
    mkdir(dirs{ii});
    for jj = randi(10,1,7)
        fclose(fopen(fullfile(dirs{ii},sprintf('file_%03d.txt',jj)),'w'));
    end
end

% get info about txt files in those two directories:
files_1 = dir(fullfile(dirs{1},'*.txt'));
names_1 = fullfile(dirs{1},{files_1.name}.')

names_1 = 7×1 cell array
    {'folder_1/file_001.txt'}
    {'folder_1/file_002.txt'}
    {'folder_1/file_003.txt'}
    {'folder_1/file_005.txt'}
    {'folder_1/file_007.txt'}
    {'folder_1/file_009.txt'}
    {'folder_1/file_010.txt'}

files_2 = dir(fullfile(dirs{2},'*.txt'));
names_2 = fullfile(dirs{2},{files_2.name}.')

names_2 = 5×1 cell array
    {'folder_2/subfolder/file_002.txt'}
    {'folder_2/subfolder/file_003.txt'}
    {'folder_2/subfolder/file_004.txt'}
    {'folder_2/subfolder/file_008.txt'}
    {'folder_2/subfolder/file_009.txt'}

% use fileparts to get just the names (with extensions):
[~,fn_1,ext_1] = fileparts(names_1);
fn_1 = strcat(fn_1,ext_1)

fn_1 = 7×1 cell array
    {'file_001.txt'}
    {'file_002.txt'}
    {'file_003.txt'}
    {'file_005.txt'}
    {'file_007.txt'}
    {'file_009.txt'}
    {'file_010.txt'}

[~,fn_2,ext_2] = fileparts(names_2);
fn_2 = strcat(fn_2,ext_2)

fn_2 = 5×1 cell array
    {'file_002.txt'}
    {'file_003.txt'}
    {'file_004.txt'}
    {'file_008.txt'}
    {'file_009.txt'}

% use intersect to find which file names are in both directories:
intersect(fn_1,fn_2)

ans = 3×1 cell array
    {'file_002.txt'}
    {'file_003.txt'}
    {'file_009.txt'}

If this is not what you want to do, clarify what you want to do.

[LabRat]

Hello, thanks for your repsonse. I tried to clarify here:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/1770495-using-contains-with-dir-to-search-files-in-folder?s_tid=srchtitle