making multiple copies of a file
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I would like to make multiple copies of a file each of which will have a different name. example: source file: A.txt copies A1.txt, A2.txt... How can I use copyfile and be able to do this? Thanks for inputs
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Accepted Answer
Walter Roberson
on 1 Sep 2011
copyfile() can only create one copy at a time, so you will need a loop (whether explicit or implicit)
One of numerous possible ways:
sourcefile = 'A.txt';
numcopies = 20;
[path, basename, ext] = fileparts(sourcefile);
filepattern = fullfile(path, [basename '%d.' ext]);
destnames = cellstr(num2str((1:numcopies).', filepattern);
cellfun(@(FID) copyfile(sourcefile, FID), destnames);
4 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 1 Sep 2011
Looks like I left off a close bracket:
destnames = cellstr(num2str((1:numcopies).', filepattern));
More Answers (3)
Amith
on 26 Dec 2012
will this work
copyfile('output2.txt',destnames(i));
1 Comment
Walter Roberson
on 26 Dec 2012
No, destnames here is a cell array of strings, so destnames(i) would be a 1 x 1 cellarray, rather than a string. If you used destnames{i} then that would be a string.
You would need to loop "i" over all of the output string possibilities. The cellfun() that I show is responsible for that.
Diana Krupnik
on 28 Jan 2019
This solution names the files by numbering them, would it be possible to instead change the names based on a table that contains string or text?
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Sam Apoola
on 14 Feb 2019
This worked for me
% loop for creating 100 copies
n=100;
for i=1:n
jobname{i}= ['copy', num2str(i),'.txt'];
copyfile('original.txt',jobname{i});
end
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