How to assign a new name for a set of data?

I have a set of data such as pic_ab011.tif, pic_ab012.tif, pic_ab013.tif, and so on. I want to get rid of the digits and assign the number whatever we want. For example, the result should be like this. First, all file names will be "pic_ab.tif" and then it will be pic_ab000, pic_ab001, pic_ab002, and so on. Do you have any suggestion? Thank you you guys in advance.

[Walter Roberson]

Please do not use your own name as one of the tags on the question. You can find your own questions easily by using the "My Questions" link on the left side of the page.

Answer 1

[Jan]

There are efficient tools to rename files using the functions of the operating system, see e.g. http://www.howtogeek.com/111859/how-to-batch-rename-files-in-windows-4-ways-to-rename-multiple-files/ or thousands of other tools suggested by your favorite search engine.

When you want to do this in Matlab for unknown but good reasons:

folder  = 'C:\Temp\YourFolder\';
list    = dir(fullfile(folder, 'pic_ab*.tif'));
nList   = length(list);
oldName = {list.name};
newName = regexp(sprintf('pic_ab%.3d*', 0:nList-1), '*', 'split');
for iFile = 1:nList
  movefile(fullfile(folder, oldName{iFile}), ...
           fullfile(folder, newName{iFile}));
end

As usual the reply of movefile should be checked to show a meaningful error message in case of problems. If you are in a hurry, use the faster FEX: FileRename.

[Nopparat]

It works very well!!! Thanks a lot.