save ensure automatic renaming

I am running a script repeatedly each time changing a few parameters, each time evaluation takes at least a few hours. At the end of my code, I put

save('myfilename.mat').

Now, each time, I have to ensure I change myfilename to avoid any data gets overwritten. Is there a way to ensure that if 'myfilename.mat' already exists, matlab saves the second .mat file as 'myfilename(1).mat' etc?

[Stephen23]

This is exactly what my FEX submission is intended for:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/64108-next-available-filename

It is designed to work efficiently even when there are a large number of files, and does not rely on a particular loop or continual code evaluation.

[Wouter Verstraelen]

@Stephen thanks!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

There is no automatic way to do that. You can write your own code for the purpose.

filenum = 0;
while true
    filenum = filenum + 1;
    filename = sprintf('myfilename_%d.mat', filenum);
    if ~exist(filename, 'file'); break; end
end
save(filename);

[Wouter Verstraelen]

thanks! I'd believe it would be great if in the future there could just be some kind of flag to the save-command though.