Wildcard '*' not working for "isfile" or renaming using "move file" commands.

I am trying to use a for loop to rename multiple netcdf files based on the dates within their filenames ex:

my filenames are "SAMETEXTFORALL_2018MMDD_DifferentTextForAll.nc"

and I need to get them to be "nest_1_2018MMDD000000.nc"

I am trying to use a for loop such as the following for each month:

for x=0:9;
    if isfile(['SAMETEXTFORALL_2018010',num2str(x),'_*.nc'])==1;
        movefile(['SAMETEXTFORALL_2018010',num2str(x),'_*.nc'], ['nest_1_2018010',num2str(x),'000000.nc']);
    else
        continue;
    end;
end;

but the isfile is returning a 0 for each despite the file existing, and when I do the movefiles individually, they create new folders with the filename, but keep the original filename the same. I think the issue lies within the '*' wildcard, because when I put in the appropriate name for individual files it works. Any help/suggestions? There are too many files to do this on a more individual basis. Thanks!

Answer 1

[Gatech AE]

I frequently need all of the FITS image files from a directory, and so I've gotten used to using the "dir" function. It seems like you could use the wildcard below. "dir" outputs a structure of various information, but we can just get names directly by dot indexing "name." Then you can parse out the MMDD and do everything at once.

filelist = {dir('SAMETEXTFORALL_2018*.nc').name};
for fn = 1:length(filelist)
    name = filelist{fn};
    ind = strfind(name,'2018');
    MMDD = name((ind+4):(ind+7));
    modName = ['nest_1_2018' MMDD '000000.nc'];
    movefile(name,modName);
end

[Brian Bartlett]

Yes! This was incredibly helpful, thank you so much.