`dir`

Lists the files and folders that match a name or pattern.

Category: Programming > Files and Folders

Syntax

dir

Displays the contents of the current folder.

dir(name)

Lists the items matching name, which can be a folder or a pattern with * wildcards.

d = dir(name)

Returns a struct array with one element per item.

Description

The result of a folder listing starts with the entries . and ... Use the isdir field to filter them out: d = d(~[d.isdir]) keeps only files. Collecting a field over the array with {d.name} gives a cell array of names, and [d.bytes] a numeric vector of sizes.

An item that does not exist produces an empty struct array with the same fields, so isempty(dir(name)) is a test for existence of a pattern.

Input arguments

name: Folder, file name or pattern such as 'data/*.csv'.

Output arguments

d: Struct array with fields name, folder, date, bytes, isdir and datenum.

Example

Listing files that match a pattern

mkdir data
writelines('1', 'data/x.txt');
writelines('22', 'data/y.csv');
d = dir('data/*.csv');
d.name
d.bytes
d.isdir

Output

ans = 'y.csv'
ans = 3
ans = logical
   0

dir