Renaming output files so as not to overwrite when name is duplicated

Hello Community!

It has been a couple of years since I have coded in MATLAB and I am a bit rusty.

I am currenlty working with data that is being output with the final date on the file. Unfortunately this can lead to duplications occiring. If I remember correctly there is a way to write the code so that it scans the names already in the file folder and would add an additional variable to the name so that it does not overwrite the existing file.

I am thinking it is an if statement that does that? Is that correct or is there a better way to write that?

ex) File in folder is already labelled 202004, would like any additional files that have the same last date to be output as 202004B, etc. Most of the files are uniques but there are a couple where this happens.

Thanks!

[Rik]

I believe there is a function by either Jan or Stephen Cobeldick that does just that. Nextname?

[Steve Eddins]

Good memory. Stephen Cobeldick's nextname function

[Stephnie Watson]

Thanks Rik and Steve I will read up on this one!

[Stephen23]

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/576892-save-in-a-new-file-using-save-command

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/479677-mkdir-and-simulations-problems

Answer 1

[Asad (Mehrzad) Khoddam]

You can use some code like this:

filename = '202004';
n=0;
if ~isempty(dir(filename))
    for n=1:1000
        newFile = fprintf('%s_%03d\n',filename,n);
        if isempty(dir(newFile))
            break;    
        end
    end 
end
% save the date on newFile

[Stephnie Watson]

Thank you Asad I will give this a try too. Much appreciated!

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

There is a function named matlab.lang.makeUniqueStrings that may be of use.