Ep03: generating file names for csv files and figures with sprintf

[gcapes]

What is the learning objective for this section? It seems rather clunky and hard to motivate.

A neater solution is suggested in the following exercise, but no solution is given, and subsequent episodes use the sprintf script.
In order to achieve the same task, I suggest using the dir command to generate a list of files to load, then use the replace command twice to generate the image file names.

I'm happy to submit a PR, but also want to check that it won't remove a learning objective. All I can think of is that sprintf won't have been covered.

[shwina]

Can you provide a quick preview of what the code would look like with dir? Does dir have the same behaviour on all platforms?

[gcapes]

The file name generation bit would look like this, and the rest of the script would be unchanged.

file_list = dir('*.csv');
for i = 1:length(file_list)
	data_file = file_list(i).name;
	img_file = replace(data_file, '.csv', '.png');
	img_file = replace(img_file, 'inflammation', 'patient_data');
end

I'd need to check that dir doesn't do anything different on Mac or Windows.

[shwina]

I think that looks fantastic, but remember that file_list here is a Cell Array (is that right?) that we haven't introduced. The dot operator is also new.

I'm completely in favour of introducing Cell Arrays before this section though.

[gcapes]

Cool! file_list is a structure array, which of course will need explaining. I'll put something together and submit a PR for discussion.