MATLAB: How to use dir in a loop to be dynamic

dir

Hi, Sorry for a simple question. I have abc1_0.765mat ……abc50_0.7462mat How I can call the dir in a loop.
for i=1:50
    A = dir('abc1*.mat');% but it also calls abc11 and I just need abc1
end
I tried A=dir(fullfile... % but I got error
Any Suggestion

Best Answer

We actually use DIR the other way around. If file names are very regular and determined by e.g. a number, we built them using SPRINTF:
 for fId = 1 : 50
    filename = sprintf( 'data_%02d.mat', fId )  ;
    ... do something ...
 end
This generates names data_01.mat, data_02.mat, etc, over successive iterations. When we don't know file names, we get a directory listing using wildcards if we know a pattern, e.g.
 listing = dir( 'abc*.mat' ) ;
Calling DIR once only, we get listing as a struct array whose entries contain references to all relevant files. Then we iterate over these entries:
 for fId = 1 : numel( listing )
    filename = listing(fId).name ;
    ... do something ...
 end
Finally, we use FULLFILE when we need to concatenate elements of path, e.g. a folder name and a file name:
 folder  = 'MyData' ;
 listing = dir( fullfile( folder, 'abc*.mat' )) ;
 for fId = 1 : numel( listing )
    fileLocator = fullfile( folder, listing(fId).name ) ;
    ... do something ...
 end
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