Can one save the filename as a variable in 'readtable'?

Suppose I use

T=readtable('texas,csv')

I want to save the name of the file (texas) as a variable. Please advise.

[alpedhuez]

Let me work on it.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

See the FAQ:

https://matlab.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_process_a_sequence_of_files.3F

Adapting it would go something like this:

% Specify the folder where the files live.
myFolder = pwd;  % or 'C:\Users\yourUserName\Documents\My Pictures';
% Check to make sure that folder actually exists.  Warn user if it doesn't.
if ~isfolder(myFolder)
    errorMessage = sprintf('Error: The following folder does not exist:\n%s\nPlease specify a new folder.', myFolder);
    uiwait(warndlg(errorMessage));
    myFolder = uigetdir(); % Ask for a new one.
    if myFolder == 0
         % User clicked Cancel
         return;
    end
end
% Get a list of all files in the folder with the desired file name pattern.
filePattern = fullfile(myFolder, '*.csv'); % Change to whatever pattern you need.
theFiles = dir(filePattern);
for k = 1 : length(theFiles)
    baseFileName = theFiles(k).name;
    fullFileName = fullfile(theFiles(k).folder, baseFileName);
    fprintf(1, 'Now reading %s\n', fullFileName);
    % Now do whatever you want with this file name,
    % such as reading it in with readtable() or csvread().
    data{k} = readtable(fullFileName);
end
fprintf('Done processing %d CSV files.\n', length(theFiles));

Results are in a cell array.

https://matlab.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ#What_is_a_cell_array.3F

It needs to be a cell array because the data in the files might not all be the same size.

[alpedhuez]

Let me work on it.

Answer 2

[Ameer Hamza]

you can save char arrays in a variable and then concatenate it with the extension using [] operator.

filename = 'texas';
T = readtable([T '.csv'])

[alpedhuez]

Thank you. But it may not really be what the question is about. The question is: how can one extract 'texas" from the file name?

[Ameer Hamza]

You can use fileparts()

filename = 'texas.csv';
[~, name, ext] = fileparts(filename)

[alpedhuez]

I see that the word "file name" could have caused the confusion.

This is the use case.

I have files such as 'texas.csv', 'iowa.csv',...

I now want to read these files

But I now want to save the name of the file so that one does not confusion texas data with iowa data.

To do that I wanted to extract the name of the file as a variable.

[Ameer Hamza]

Are you trying to name the variables named like texas, iowa, etc. For example

filename = 'texas';
texas = readtable([T '.csv'])

This is not a good coding approach: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

[alpedhuez]

Let me work on it.