Need help for Renaming Matlab Image png

Hi,

I have a folder consist of images which has random name but its placing on index (sorting) is correct.

I want to rename those folder to 1,2,3,4,5 and so on, instead of its random name.

Example: 323A23.png to 1.png

Any expert can offer me guidance how to rename file.

Thanks.

Answer 1

[Dave B]

I often find myself doing this sort of thing with the system command, but it's probably better to do it with movefile.

Suppose your files are in C:\myfiles

filepath='C:\myfiles'
movefile(fullfile(filepath, '323A23.png'), fullfile(filepath, '1.png'));

Of course you probably want to loop over many files. A pro tip is, before you rename all of your files to something that you didn't intend, have a look at what the code will do with a disp:

filelist=dir(fullfile(filepath, '*.png'));
for i = 1:numel(filelist)
    oldname = filelist(i).name;
    newname = [num2str(i) '.png']; % can also do newname = string(i) + ".png";
    
    fprintf('will rename %s to %s\n'); %check these before running with the next line uncommented
    %movefile(fullfile(filepath, oldname), fullfile(filepath, newname));
end

The system version of this just amounts to passing in the same text that you'd put into the shell, e.g. in windows it's something like:

system(['rename "' fullfile(filepath, oldname) '" "' fullfile(filepath, newname) '"'])

but it's easy to mess up the quotes which you need for file names that contain spaces, so I think movefile is probably better, and it will also be multi-platform!

[LinusL]

Thanks alot

Answer 2

[KSSV]

thepath =' ';  % give the path of the folder 
imgNames =dir( fullfile(thepath, '*.png') );

for img = 1 : numel(imgNames )
  newName = fullfile(thepath, [num2str(img),'.png'] );
  movefile( fullfile(thepath, imgNames(img).name), newName );    
end

[LinusL]

got the error of

Brace indexing is not supported for variables of this type.

for this line

movefile( fullfile(thepath, imgNames{ img }), newName );

[KSSV]

What error?

[LinusL]

Brace indexing is not supported for variables of this type.

Error in Untitled (line 8)

movefile( fullfile(thepath, imgNames{ img }), newName );

[KSSV]

Try now..edited the answer.