MATLAB: Strange behavior retrieving directories’ names with dir

dirdirectorysubdirectory

I am trying to extract the names of the subdirectories contained in one directory. For example:
   mainDirectory
      matlabScript.m
      results
         subdirectory1
         subdirectory2
         subdirectory3
         subdirectory4
I am running the following in matlabScript.m :
   subdirectories = dir([pwd filesep results filesep]);
In theory, I should get a structure with 4 elements, one for each subdirectory. However, I am getting 6 elements. Of these, 4 are the desired subdirectories, but the other two are two mysterious subdirectories:
       name: '.'
       date: '30-sep-2011 10:09:14'
      bytes: 0
      isdir: 1
    datenum: 7.3478e+005
       name: '..'
       date: '27-sep-2011 19:51:12'
      bytes: 0
      isdir: 1
    datenum: 7.3477e+005
I am pretty sure I do not have this directories. I already read the documentation of dir ant nothing is stated. I also changed the OS properties to show any hidden folders and not even with that I found them. How can I correct this strange behavior? I am running MATLAB R2010b in a computer with Windows 7, 64 bits.
Thanks in advance

Best Answer

Some modifications: cd is faster than pwd, the trailing file separator is not needed, fullfile is smarter than [cd, filesep, results], because it considers the already existing separator in e.g. "C:\":
subdirectories = dir(fullfile(cd, results));
If you want to exclude all files and folders starting with a dot -e.g. a common method under Unix:
subdirectories(strncmp({subdirectories.name}, '.', 1)) = [];
To remove only "." and "..":
subname                        = {subdirectories.name};
subname(strcmp(subname, '.'))  = [];
subname(strcmp(subname, '..')) = [];
Although these two directories have been the first and second entries in the list in all of my tests under Windows95 to Windows7, Suse-Linux, MacOS7/8/9/X, AUX and AIX, I would not rely on this, but use astring comparison always.
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