How to get matlab to open a file based on its file type?

I've got a large set of data that I am trying to make a matlab file to help navigate. This data contains several different file types like autocad drawings (.ipt), images (.jpeg), PDF files, etc. What I need doing is to have the user click on the file they want opened within the matlab script and then it will open to appropriate program for the user to see.

example: I click on this file name: cadfile.ipt

and it opens AutoCad for me to view that file

Can anyone help set me on this path?

Daniel

Answer 1

[Sebastian Castro]

Hi Daniel,

The easiest thing off the top of my head is the FILEPARTS function, which works like this:

[pathstr,name,ext] = fileparts(filename)

In other words, the path C:\Users\Daniel\cadfile.ipt would return:

 pathstr = 'C:\Users\Daniel'
 name = 'cadfile'
 ext = 'ipt'

Then, you can use the "ext" output if you want to act accordingly on the file based on the extension.

[Sebastian Castro]

Actually, let me back up a little because there's other functions that maybe do exactly what you want.

UIOPEN: Opens up a window (based on your operating system) where users can then select files. Whatever default program you set up outside MATLAB will be what's used to open the file. If you know the name/path of the file already, you can just enter the file name as an argument, bypassing the user selection dialog.

UIGETFILE: Opens up the same window as UIOPEN, but instead of opening file after the user selects it, it simply returns the name and path of that file. So, if you want your code to be more "intelligent" about opening files, you can use this and then have some logic based on the extension, etc.

Answer 2

[Guillaume]

On windows, use winopen:

winopen('cadfile.ipt');