How to get selected folders from multiple folders in a directory?

I have multiple folders named as run_0.05, run_0.10, run_0.15..........run_2.50 etc. I would like to select particular 4 folders like run_0.25, run_0.50, run_0.75 and run_1.0. How do I get selected folders from a multiple folders?

[Stephen23]

"I would like to select particular 4 folders like run_0.25, run_0.50, run_0.75 and run_1.0."

What do you mean by "select" ?:

1. Do you want the user to be offered a list of folder names, from which they can make a selection?
2. Do you want to provide a cell array of folder names, and loop over those names?
3. Do you want to use some criteria to automatically select folder names from the complete list of folders?
4. etc.

Once you make it clear what you actually want to do, then you are more likely to get useful advice.

[sam moor]

I want to automatically select particular folders names from the complete list of folders and run for loop for each selected folders. Hope this helps.

[Stephen23]

"Hope this helps."

Not really, because you did not explain what "automatically select" actually means. Do you want to "automatically select" some of the names based on properties or features of those names, or based on another existing list of parts of those names, or based on what the user selects, or by randomly picking four of the names, or by picking the first four names, or ...? What determines which of those names should be "automatically select"-ed ?

If you do not explain how this "automatic selection" is based on, then you are unlikely to get any useful advice.

"I would like to select particular 4 folders like run_0.25, run_0.50, run_0.75 and run_1.0."

What other names are "like" them? Why not just put those names into a cell array and use them?

[sam moor]

I want to select randomly four of the folders name from the list of the folders. For example I have a main folder "run". In "run" folder I have run_0.01, run_0.05, run_0.10, run_0.25, 0.3,0.5,0.6,0.75,1.0. I want to select randomly four names run_0.05, run_0.25, run_0.5, run_0.75.

If we can't randomly select the folders than I can also go with user selects folders.

Any advice is appreciated

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

To randomly select four folder names:

D = 'path of the directory where the folders are';
S = dir(fullfile(D,'*'));
X = [S.isdir] & ~ismember({S.name},{'.','..'});
N = {S(X).name};
Y = randperm(numel(N));
Z = N(Y(1:4))

[sam moor]

Thank you Stephen.

If we want to select specific 6 folders such as run1, run2, run3...run6 Do we need to change N?

[Stephen23]

"If we want to select specific 6 folders such as run1, run2, run3...run6 Do we need to change N?"

N is a cell array of all of the folder names: how would you want to "change" it?

The actual solution is that you would need to define what you mean by "... select specific 6 folders such as...": first you say that you want "specific" folders (that is easy, just write them in a cell array), then you write "... such as...", which implies that it is not those specific folders that you want, but some folders whose names follow some pattern or have some property (which you have not told us about). So one you define what you mean by "select specific folders", then we can help you with it.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Once you have a cell array with all the folder names in it, use ismember() to find the indexes of the one you want.

[ia, ib] = ismember(desiredFolderName, allFolderNames)

[sam moor]

my folders is in structure not in cell array. How do i do for struct?

[Image Analyst]

Use a for loop is one way

for k = 1 : length(s) % s is the struct
    thisFolder = s.folder;
    if strcmpi(thisFolder, desiredName)
        % Folder name matches so do something.
    end
end

Or get values from structure, s, into a cell array

allFileNames = {s.folder};

Then use ismember().

[sam moor]

still getting error...how do i select run_0.25, run_0.50, run_0.75 and run_1.00 from list of folders?

[Image Analyst]

Try (untested)

files = [dir('**/run_0.25');...
dir('**/run_0.50');...
dir('**/run_0.75');...
dir('**/run_1.00')]

[sam moor]

it listed all the files in the folders....but not folders