file.m

tools.file

tools.file is responsible for file-path management and maintaining the inputs and outputs of ViNERS in a SPARC data structure.

tools.file is part of package +tools

Usage

tools.file, by itself, returns the path to the installation directory of ViNERS (e.g. C:\Users\Calvin\Documents\MATLAB\ViNERS).

The basic usage is illustrated by tools.file('~/source/example.json'), which returns the absolute path to example.json in the source folder. However, tools.file is most useful when working within a subjects (or sample or run) folder, which is illustrated with the following syntax:

tools.file('set','sub-401\sam-1') sets the active subject to subject 401, sample 1. tools.file('sub~\axons\axons (1).mat') get axons file for this subject

The second call to tools.file above can be shortened to:
tools.file('axons~\axons (1).mat') get axons file for this subject

tools.file('out~\path\to\object') looks for the subject/sample/run folder as a subfolder of ~/derivative instead of ~/primary.

tools.file supports a number of other operations:

• tools.file('list', ...) list subjects
• tools.file('list', '<~ path>') list contents of folder
• tools.file('rename','<~ path>') rename file or folder (not tested recently)
• tools.file('info') return info about current file/subject and machine/process information
• tools.file('get','<~ path>') returns a full filepath from a partial filepath (in the example above, tools.file('get','axons~\axons*.mat') would return the newest axons.mat file in the axons folder of the current subject.
• tools.file('get','<~ path>','next') returns a full filepath for creating a new file which will not override any other files.
• tools.file('cache') calls tools.cache
• tools.file('open','<~ path>') calls winopen on '<~ path>'
• tools.file('short','path') returns the <~ path> for a given full path, with ViNERS' installation directory replaced with '~'
• tools.file('shorter','path') returns a shorter <~ path> for a given full path, with tools.file('sub~') replaced with 'sub~'

Note: tools.file stores this information in a persistent variable, only reading from disk as needed (reading from +tools/running.json). As a consequence, the first call to tools.file (which in good practice is tools.file('set', [subject])) will usually take a few seconds to complete.