Retrieve data from Hard Drive (Local Directory)

How can I build my own m file to retrieve the data from my hard drive.

Answer 1

[Richard]

I would think that you need to use the dir command. If the files are located in your C drive then:

clear all
TopFolder = 'C:\';
SubFolder = dir(TopFolder);
SubFolder = SubFolder(3:end); % the first two here are just pointers
a = struct2cell(SubFolder);
Name = a(1,:);

This will give you the name of the files where your data is located. You then need to obtain the name of each of the files in that folder:

b = cellfun(@(x)dir(fullfile(TopFolder,x)),Name,'un',0);
c = cellfun(@(x)x(3:end),b,'un',0);
d = cellfun(@(x)struct2cell(x),c,'un',0);
FileS = cellfun(@(x)x(1,:),d,'un',0);

You can then import the data using one of the built in matlab functions:

http://www.mathworks.co.uk/help/techdoc/ref/importdata.html

If your data is stored in a text file I would recommend using textscan.

Answer 2

[Valentino]

Hi Lestyn,

I trust you are well and all is good. Thanks for the reply on my question posted. I just have one question further:

Say this is the location where my data is stored:

C:\work\data\2003\302

How will the code look? I'm a bit confused about the subfolder part and the obtaining part of each file in the folder.

What Matlab functions do I need to use to import data?