Problems about extracting all the data files

%This function is used to get all the data files to be processed

%fdir--the directory of files to be processed


function ufnames = getdatafile(fdir,debug)


close all;


    if ~isdir(fdir)
        
        error('FOLDER DOES NOT EXIST')
        
    end
    
    fnames_all = dir(fdir); %GET LIST OF FILES IN fdir FOLDER
    
    if debug
        
        fprintf('\n')
        fprintf('\nNames of files inside given directory:\n')
        fnames_all
        fprintf('\n')
        
    end
    
    %EXTRACT FILE NAMES TO BE PROCESSED
    ufnames = [];
    
    sfnames_all = size(fnames_all);
    
    for i = 1:sfnames_all(1)
        
        [path, fname, ext]  = fileparts(fnames_all(i).name);
        
        if strcmpi(ext, '.ovf')
            
           ufnames = char(ufnames, [fdir fname ext]); %IF OVF FILE SAVE FULL NAME
            
        end
        
    end
    
    ufnames = ufnames(2:end,:);
    
    if debug
        
        fprintf('\n')
        fprintf('\nNames of only ovf files inside given directory:\n')
        ufnames
        fprintf('\n')
       
        
    end




end

This is my code, and I want to use this function to wxtract all the data files to be processed. But when I run it, I always get an error at"ufnames = char(ufnames, [fdir fname ext]);", which says"Error using char, Inputs must be character arrays." How can I solve it? How to append the new file name into the array in each loop?

Answer 1

[Shawn Duenas]

replace that line with:

ufnames = [ufnames, [fdir fname ext]];

it seems like you're trying to concatenate everything together. into one long string.

try this for better coding style:

ufnames = [ufnames, fullfile(fdir, [fname, ext]), newline];

Also try these lines of code to replace much of the script:

fnames_all = dir(fullfile(fdir,'*.ovf'));
ufnames ={fnames_all.name}';

[Yixin Shao]

Thank you very much! Could I ask one more question? How can I make the newly appended file name into another row, not another column? Since the "newline" here just add an extra column.

[Yixin Shao]

I changed the comma into semicolon and it works. THX