Re-naming Text files in many folders using matlab

Dear all

i have many folders, where every folder contain text files, i need to parse the whole folders and then re-naming exist files to name of parent folder along with its names as in follow:

for example in folder1 where text files are ={ text1.txt, name.txt, vbar.txt, ....etc} hope to be = { folder1-text1.txt, folder1-name1.txt, etc...}

thanks for any suggestion

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

projectdir = 'name of main directory goes here';

dinfo = dir(projectdir);
dinfo(~[dinfo.isdir]) = [];   %remove non-folders
dinfo(ismember({dinfo.name}, {'.', '..'}) = [];   %remove . and .. directories

num_subdir = length(dinfo);
for S = 1 : num_subdir
  this_subdir = dinfo(S).name;

    subdinfo = dir( fullfile(projectdir, this_subdir, '*.txt') );

    num_subfile = length(subdinfo);

    for F = 1 : num_subfile
      this_file = subdinfo(F).name;
      old_file = fullfile( projectdir, this_subdir, this_file );
      new_file = fullfile( projectdir, [this_subdir '-' this_file] );
      try
        rename(old_file, new_file);
      catch ME
        fprintf('Failed to rename "%s" to "%s"\n', old_file, new_file );
      end
    end

end

[ahmed obaid]

Walter Roberson, i have just modified the following :

rename (old_file, new_file);
with 
movefile(old_file, new_file);

and its working fine .. but the problem its keep the renaming files in parent directory instead of it source directory..

in other words.. all text files are renamed successfully but its moved to parent folders not in folder1, folder2 ..etc.?

[Walter Roberson]

        new_file = fullfile( projectdir, this_subdir, [this_subdir '-' this_file] );

[ahmed obaid]

thank you very much ... very great code..

Answer 2

[Thibaut Jacqmin]

Use the following function GetAllSubDirAndFiles(main_folder) where main_folder is the path to the folder containing all the subfolders containing the files you want to rename. The output contains all the folders and files. Then you can rename the files

% Example :

[subfolders, files] = GetAllSubDirAndFiles(main_folder);

Then files{1} is a cell containing all files that are in the subfoler subfolders{1} and so on for files{2}, etc.

Here are the two functions you need

function [sub,fls] = GetAllSubDirAndFiles(main_folder)
   [sub, fls] = subfolder(main_folder,'','');

function [sub,fls] = subfolder(main_folder,sub,fls)
tmp = dir(main_folder);
tmp = tmp(~ismember({tmp.name},{'.' '..'}));
for i = {tmp([tmp.isdir]).name}
   sub{end+1} = [main_folder '\' i{:}];
   if nargin==2
      sub = subfolder(sub{end},sub);
   else
      tmp = dir(sub{end});
      fls{end+1} = {tmp(~[tmp.isdir]).name};
      [sub, fls] = subfolder(sub{end},sub,fls);
   end% if
end% for

[ahmed obaid]

Is there any renaming process in your code ? can you please suggest me when i have to put rename code if possible..

[Thibaut Jacqmin]

You should add the renaming part. So the total code is :

[subfolders, files] = GetAllSubDirAndFiles(main_folder);

for k = 1:length(subfolders)
   for i = files{k}
       old_filepath = fullfile(subfolders{k}, '/', strjoin(i));
       ind = max(strfind(subfolders{k}, '\'));
       new_filepath = fullfile(subfolders{k}, '\', [subfolders{k}(ind+1:end), '_', strjoin(i)])
       movefile(old_filepath, new_filepath);
   end
end

function [sub,fls] = GetAllSubDirAndFiles(main_folder)
   [sub, fls] = subfolder(main_folder,'','');

function [sub,fls] = subfolder(main_folder,sub,fls)
tmp = dir(main_folder);
tmp = tmp(~ismember({tmp.name},{'.' '..'}));
for i = {tmp([tmp.isdir]).name}
   sub{end+1} = [main_folder '\' i{:}];
   if nargin==2
      sub = subfolder(sub{end},sub);
   else
      tmp = dir(sub{end});
      fls{end+1} = {tmp(~[tmp.isdir]).name};
      [sub, fls] = subfolder(sub{end},sub,fls);
   end
end

[ahmed obaid]

Thank you very much... its working fine..