How do I search for a wildcard file pattern (\**\* or /**/*) with in a directory in an OS independent way

I need to search recusrsively for all the files in directory with a pattern p05 within the directory homeDirectory

I can use the following in windows elastixInputFiles = dir ([homeDirectory '\**\*p05*']);

and in mac/linux elastixInputFiles = dir ([homeDirectory '/**/*p05*']);

Is there any other cleaner way?

Answer 1

[Ameer Hamza]

See fullfile(). It will create a complete path in an OS independent way. In your case,

elastixInputFiles = dir (fullfile(homeDirectory, '**', '*p05*'));

Also refer to this FEX submission for more details: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/1492-subdir--new-.

Answer 2

[Star Strider]

Use the *filesep (link) function to get the file separator for the system you are running your code on:

f = filesep;
elastixInputFiles = dir(sprintf('%s%c**%c*p05',homeDirectory,f,f));

Experiment to get the result you want.

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

You can always use / as a directory specifier on MS Windows. / is the actual internal directory specifier; \ was used for the shell level because / was already in use for command line switches at the shell level at the time that directories were designed into MS Windows.