If you show us the code, we can help you better.

To include igor code in these forum postings, put <igor> and </igor> tags around the text, like this:

<igor>
Function/S ListFilesOfType(dataFolderStr,type,fileTypeStr)
String dataFolderStr
Variable type // popup,"Igor Binary;Igor Text;General Text;Delimited Text;"
String fileTypeStr // usually "TEXT" for *.txt files on Windows

String files=""
if( type == 1 )
files= IndexedFile($dataFolderStr,-1,fileTypeStr) // list of all files with matching type
else
if( type == 2 ) // Igor Text, either "TEXT" or "IGTX" (.txt or .itx)
// open each TEXT or IGTX file, and if the first line is "IGOR", add it to files
files= IgorOrTextFiles(dataFolderStr,fileTypeStr,1) // on Windows, *.txt (or user's file type)
if( CmpStr(fileTypeStr,"IGTX") != 0 ) // avoid listing a file twice
files += IgorOrTextFiles(dataFolderStr,"IGTX",1) // on Windows, *.itx,
endif
else
files= IgorOrTextFiles(dataFolderStr,fileTypeStr,0) // on Windows, *.txt
endif
endif
return files
End

</igor>

and it will be nicely formatted:

Function/S ListFilesOfType(dataFolderStr,type,fileTypeStr)
	String dataFolderStr
	Variable type			// popup,"Igor Binary;Igor Text;General Text;Delimited Text;"
	String fileTypeStr		// usually "TEXT" for *.txt files on Windows
 
	String files=""
	if( type == 1 )
		files= IndexedFile($dataFolderStr,-1,fileTypeStr)	// list of all files with matching type
	else
		if( type == 2 )	// Igor Text, either "TEXT" or "IGTX" (.txt or .itx)
			// open each TEXT or IGTX file, and if the first line is "IGOR", add it to files
			files= IgorOrTextFiles(dataFolderStr,fileTypeStr,1)		// on Windows, *.txt (or user's file type)
			if( CmpStr(fileTypeStr,"IGTX") != 0 )					// avoid listing a file twice
				files +=  IgorOrTextFiles(dataFolderStr,"IGTX",1)	// on Windows, *.itx,
			endif
		else
			files= IgorOrTextFiles(dataFolderStr,fileTypeStr,0)		// on Windows, *.txt
		endif
	endif
	return files
End

--Jim Prouty
Software Engineer, WaveMetrics, Inc.

I would rewrite it this way, but you should note that if pathName and fileName are valid, there won't be any dialog other than the one initial NewPath dialog for the user to cancel out of, so you shouldn't ever get into the situation where there are many dialogs to cancel out of.

#pragma rtGlobals=1		// Use modern global access method.
Function LoadAndGraph(fileName, pathName)
	String fileName // Name of file to load or "" to get dialog
	String pathName // Name of path or "" to get dialog
	// Load the waves and set the variables.
	LoadWave/g/D/O/P=$pathName fileName		// no dialog if pathName and fileName are valid
	if (V_flag==0)
		return -1 // No waves loaded (if pathName and file name are right, user doesn't have opportunity to cancel).
	endif 
	return 0 // 0 signifies success
End
Function LoadAndGraphAll(pathName)
	String pathName // Name of symbolic path or "" to get dialog
	String fileName
	Variable index=0
	if (strlen(pathName)==0) // If no path specified, create one
		NewPath/O temporaryPath // This will put up a dialog
		if (V_flag != 0)
			return -1 // User cancelled
		endif
		pathName = "temporaryPath"
	endif
	Variable result=0
	do // Loop through each file in folder
		fileName = IndexedFile($pathName, index, ".txt")
		if (strlen(fileName) == 0) // No more files?
			break // Break out of loop
		endif
		result = LoadAndGraph(fileName, pathName)
		if( result == -1 )
			break	// user cancelled or no waves in this file (which we take to be an error)
		endif
		index += 1
	while (1)
	if (Exists("temporaryPath")) // Kill temp path if it exists
		KillPath temporaryPath
	endif
	return result // 0 Signifies success.
End

thank you
I excecuted it and it worked properly. both advices were so helpful.
I learned a lot here. I will continue learning and discussing in this nice forum
thanks again

Hi,

I've copied your program to Igor and tried to use it.
I got an error message that said "A non-existent data folder was referenced while accessing a child data folder".
My command line was: "LoadAndGraphAll(C:\Users\Aviv\Documents\Aviv\flex\Flex52 _Pani_90_30\)"

I'd appreciate any assistance on the matter, since you guys wrote that this program works for you.

Thanks you,
Aviv

#pragma rtGlobals=1		// Use modern global access method.
Function LoadAndGraph(fileName, pathName)
	String fileName // Name of file to load or "" to get dialog
	String pathName // Name of path or "" to get dialog
	// Load the waves and set the variables.
	LoadWave/g/D/O/P=$pathName fileName		// no dialog if pathName and fileName are valid
	if (V_flag==0)
		return -1 // No waves loaded (if pathName and file name are right, user doesn't have opportunity to cancel).
	endif 
	return 0 // 0 signifies success
End
Function LoadAndGraphAll(pathName)
	String pathName // Name of symbolic path or "" to get dialog
	String fileName
	Variable index=0
	if (strlen(pathName)==0) // If no path specified, create one
		NewPath/O temporaryPath // This will put up a dialog
		if (V_flag != 0)
			return -1 // User cancelled
		endif
		pathName = "temporaryPath"
	endif
	Variable result=0
	do // Loop through each file in folder
		fileName = IndexedFile($pathName, index, ".txt")
		if (strlen(fileName) == 0) // No more files?
			break // Break out of loop
		endif
		result = LoadAndGraph(fileName, pathName)
		if( result == -1 )
			break	// user cancelled or no waves in this file (which we take to be an error)
		endif
		index += 1
	while (1)
	if (Exists("temporaryPath")) // Kill temp path if it exists
		KillPath temporaryPath
	endif
	return result // 0 Signifies success.
End

Great, thank you very much.
I have another question on this part, if I want to use the filename variable and rename every wave loaded to it's filename + an extention, such as:
wave0 = filename_loaded
filename includes the file type "aviv.txt" instead of just "aviv".
I've tried using strcpy, strncpy, strcat, etc, but none of these commands work in Igor.
How can I shorten the filename?

Thank you again,
Aviv

If the file extension can vary, then you might want to use ParseFilePath instead of RemoveEnding. To remove the extension use the form:

ParseFilePath(3, filename, ":", 0, 0)

where filename is your input file name with extension (with or without the path). If filename includes the path then the ":" above specifies the path separator. If you get the path from Igor, regardless of whether you are working on Mac or Windows, a colon will be the path separator. In effect this function removes everything after the final ".".

For example:

print ParseFilePath(3, "gabbagabba.hey", ":", 0, 0)

prints:

gabbagabba

Hello

I have also been attempting to write a macro which I can use to load all text files within a folder, unfortunately these are not categorised the same way as fairman's and are named as shown in the following example:

p100kimage545836.tif.dat
p100kimage545837.tif.dat
....etc. etc.......
p100kimage545936.tif.dat

Ideally I would also like the macro to append the new waves into seperate graph windows as they are loaded, as demonstrated using the following macro for an individual 2D intensity plot, unfortunately there are >100 scans make in each scan so it's not really feasible to do this individually!:

Macro Load2DImage(imagename)
	Variable imagename
	LoadWave/G/M/D/A=Image/E=0
	Display;AppendImage "Image0"
	ModifyImage "Image0" ctab= {0,50,Grays,1}
End

Initially I tried to accomplish this by using a do loop within a do loop, however, due to my lack of knowledge w.r.t. Igor syntax I have not found a means by which to read every file within a directory and allocate systematic wavenames to these files (wave0, wave1 etc.). Therefore after reading Fariman's original query I attempted to use the solutions that were suggested.

Unfortunately the following macro was only capable of loading a single wave and I'm unable to see how it differentiates from that suggested by JimProuty

macro Load2DImage(filename, pathname)
	string filename
	string pathname
	LoadWave/G/M/D/o/a/E=0/P=$pathname filename
	if (V_flag !=0)
		return -1
	endif
	return 0
end
 
macro Load2DImageAll(pathname)
	string pathname
	string filename
	variable index=0
 
	if (strlen(pathname)==0)
		newpath/o/m="Select a scan directory" temppath
		if (V_flag !=0)
			return -1
		endif
		pathname = "temppath"
	endif
	variable result=0
 
	do
		filename = indexedfile($pathname, index, ".tif.dat")
		if (strlen(filename) == 0)
			break
		endif
		result = Load2DImage(filename, pathname)
		if( result == -1 )
			break
		endif
		index += 1
	while (1)
	if (exists("temppath"))
		killpath temppath
	endif
	return result
end

Whereas the following macro failed to load any waves whatsoever and I'm also lost as to why.

Macro Load2DImage(filename, pathname)
string filename
string pathname
if (strlen(pathname)==0)
newpath/o/m="Select a scan directory" thepath
if (v_flag!=0)
return -1
endif
pathname= "thepath"
endif
variable index = 0
	do
		filename= indexedfile ($pathname, index, ".tif.dat")
		if (strlen (filename)== 0)
		break
		endif
		LoadWave/G/M/D/a=Image/E=0/P=$pathname filename
		Display;AppendImage $pathname filename
		ModifyImage $pathname filename ctab= {0,50,Grays,1}  
		if (V_flag==0)
		break
		endif
		index+=1
	while(1)
end

As you can probably establish I am fairly new to script writing as a whole so any suggestions, no matter how condescending you feel they may be, will be much appreciated.

Jon

Hello Hrodstein,

Thank you very much for the quick reply, unfortunately when attempting to execute the functions posted I was met with "syntax error: expected string variable or string function".

Could this be effected in anyway by my using Igor 5.04B (on a mac)

Regards
Jon