omitting pointers when listing folder contents

In order to list folder contents I use:

TopFolder = dir('E:\');

Say if I had one file within that specific folder MATLAB returns 3 structures where the name of the first two are just pointers i.e. '.' and '..'.

How is it possible to omit these? I currently just omit the first two by:

a = SubFolder(3:end)

then use

a.name

to obtain the name. Is there a more accurate way of doing this i.e. supported by the documentation?

Answer 1

[Jan]

It is not documented, that . and .. are the first two elements replied by DIR. Therefore checking the names is safer:

DirList = dir('E:\');
DirName = {DirList.name};
DirList(strcmp(DirName, '.')) = [];
DirList(strcmp(DirName, '..')) = [];

To omit all files and folders starting with a dot:

DirList = dir('E:\');
DirName = {DirList.name};
DirList(strncmp(DirName, '.', 1)) = [];

Now "DirList" is the cleaned list of files and folders.

[Walter Roberson]

But will still have any folders whose names did not happen to start with '.'

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

TopFolder = dir('E:\');
TopFolder([TopFolder.isdir]) = [];