How to copy and rename files in a different folder

Hi all,

Let's say I have 3 text files (001X, 002Y and 003Z) in the folder A. Now, I want to first move these files to a created folder B and then rename them like so: 001_T, 002_T and 003_T) so I now have the old files in folder A and the new renamed ones in folder B. I'm almost done but my code (below) doesn't quite work. Any ideas? Thank you.

%First create the folder B

CurrentDirectory=pwd;                  
if exist([pwd '\B'])~=7     
mkdir B                   
end

%Move the files with copyfiles ?

%Then rename the files

A =dir( fullfile('*.txt') );  
fileNames = { A.name };
for iFile = 1 : numel( A )
movefile(A(iFile).name,[A(iFile).name(1:3) '_T.txt']);
end

[Image Analyst]

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/13205#answer_18099

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try this:

% First create the folder B, if necessary.
outputFolder = fullfile(pwd, 'B')
if ~exist(outputFolder, 'dir')
  mkdir(outputFolder);
end
% Copy the files over with a new name.
inputFiles = dir( fullfile('*.txt') );
fileNames = { inputFiles.name };
for k = 1 : length(inputFiles )
  thisFileName = fileNames{k};
  % Prepare the input filename.
  inputFullFileName = fullfile(pwd, thisFileName)
  % Prepare the output filename.
  outputBaseFileName = sprintf('%s_T.txt', thisFileName(1:end-4));
  outputFullFileName = fullfile(outputFolder, outputBaseFileName)
  % Do the copying and renaming all at once.
  copyfile(inputFullFileName, outputFullFileName);
end

[012786534]

Great job !!!

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

You need to take the badly-named B folder and make the full filename out of it

outputBaseFileName = [A(iFile).name(1:3) '_T.txt'];
outputFileName = fullfile(B, outputBaseFileName );

and use that in movefile.

[012786534]

Sorry, but Im not sure I follow you, quite frankly

Answer 3

[Michael Rowlands]

I have encountered similar situations where I need to copy and rename files. So I wrote a function to handle many copy and rename configurations. It's a convenient way of copying and renaming large groups of files using lists and wildcards. It's called "easycopy" and is available on the Matlab File Exchange.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/63417-easycopy

(There's also a sister function, "easyrename" which does the same searching and find-replace, but with a move/rename command.)

Here's how it works in the exact situation described by bluegin.

ORIGINAL DIRECTORY: ...copy2\001X.txt, ...002Y.txt, ...003Z.txt

NEW DIRECTORY: ....copy2\newdir

easycopy('c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\00??.*','c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\newdir\00?_T.*')

COPYING FILES .....

Copying c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\001X.txt
To c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\newdir\001_T.txt

Copying c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\002Y.txt
To c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\newdir\002_T.txt

Copying c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\003Z.txt
To c:\USERN\desktop\copy2\newdir\003_T.txt

DONE !

Answer 4

[jonathan]

You can use code by Image analyst or you can easily use Batch Rename Files Tool. You can easily found hier BatchRenameFiles.org that allows you to quickly rename all the files created in folder A to folder B.