MATLAB: Loading multiple (e.g. ~ 3000) mat files into workspace and merging them in a table

Question

I have many mat files (no particular sequence such as file1.mat, file2.mat etc etc) in a folder. I want to load all of them into a workspace and then merge all the mat files in a table.

Any efficient way to do so other than loading all of them manually (which can be done if I select all the files using CTRL+A then press enter, no issues of RAM as I have 16 gigs and the files will take at best 3 gigs of RAM) and then using the table(names of variables,……….)? My main issue is i will need to list all 3000 variables from workspace to table function manually which I don't want to do.

Answer 1

" i will need to list all 3000 variables from workspace.."

That is a good example of why load-ing directly into the workspace is a bad way to write code.

Preallocate a table (exactly how depends on how you want to join the tables).

Loop over the files. Load each file into a structure, i.e.:

S = load(...)

Convert the structure to a table using struct2table:

T = struct2table(S);

Use one of the table join functions to add the new table to the preallocated table:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/tables.html?s_tid=CRUX_lftnav