MATLAB: What to do about zeros in filenames when importing data to cell using sprintf …

MATLABsprintf import data numbering ten filenames with zeros numerical filenames import to cell

This seems like it would be a fairly common problem, yet I haven't found any documentation or on Answers relating to this. So if anyone has a handy link, that'd be great (maybe it's too specific).

I have ten datasets in *.MAT format named sequentially:

Position01.mat, Position02.mat … through to … Position10.mat

Importing Position01 to Position09 to a cell is no issue, but opening and importing "Position10.mat" is made tricky because the number in its filename is "formatted" differently; specifically, doesn't start with zero. So, I'm wondering if I can keep my filenames, which keep the files nicely organised and in order outside MATLAB and find a workaround for dealing with "Position10.mat".

I'm currently using these lines to import the files …

NumFiles    = 10;
AudioCell   = cell(1, NumFiles);
for k = 1: NumFiles
  Position      = sprintf('Position0%d.mat', k);
  AudioCell{k}  = importdata(Position);
end

It imports Position01 – Position09 exactly how I want, but Position10 has me stumped. Is changing the *.MAT filenames to "Position1", "Position2" and so on, my only decent option? So …

Position      = sprintf('Position%d.mat', k);

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer