get 'Documents' path in Matlab

Question

I understand you can probably use the following code to get the job done in most cases:

mydocpath = fullfile(getenv('USERPROFILE'), 'Documents');

However, if the user has moved 'Doucments' folder to a different location, for example: E:\Documents, the above code won't work, since getenv('USERPROFILE') always returns C:\Users\MY_USER_NAME.

In C#, one can use Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments), which always returns the correct path regardless where 'Documents' is. Is there anything similar in Matlab?

My current solution is rather clumsy and probably unsafe:

% search in the MATLAB path lists
% this method assumes that there is always a path containing \Documents\MATLAB registered already
searchPtn = '\Documents\MATLAB';
pathList = strsplit(path,';');
strIdx = strfind(pathList, searchPtn);
candidateIdx = strIdx{find(cellfun(@isempty,strIdx)==0, 1)}(1);
myDocPath = pathList{candidateIdx}(1 : strIdx{candidateIdx}+ numel(searchPtn));

AFAIK, if it has been moved from %USERPROFILE%\Documents then the only way to get it programatically outside of the .NET approach you're already aware of is to get it from the registry. You may be able to use the .NET libraries with MATLAB directly, but I'm not familiar with the syntax. — excaza
@excaza thanks for the idea of registry. I found a solution using dos instead of the .NET libraries. — Anthony

Anthony Anthony · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-16T13:16:36

Based on @excaza 's suggestion, I came up with a solution using dos and the cmd command found here to query the registry.

% query the registry
[~,res]=dos('reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Personal');
% parse result
res = strsplit(res, ' ');
myDocPath = strtrim(res{numel(res)});

Edit:

If the document folder in customer's PC has not been relocated or moved to one of the environment path such as %SYSTEMROOT%, the above method would return

%SOME_ENVIRONMENT_PATH%/Documents(Or a custom folder name)

The above path will not work in Matlab's functions such as mkdir or exist, which will take %SOME_ENVIRONMENT_PATH% as a folder name. Therefore we need to check for the existence of environment path in the return value and get the correct path:

[startidx, endidx] = regexp(myDocPath,'%[A-Z]+%');
if ~isempty(startidx)
    myDocPath = fullfile(getenv(myDocPath(startidx(1)+1:endidx(1)-1)), myDocPath(endidx(1)+1:end));
end

Full code:

% query the registry
[~,res]=dos('reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Personal');
% parse result
res = strsplit(res, ' ');
% get path
myDocPath = strtrim(res{numel(res)});
% if it returns %AAAAA%/xxxx, meaning the Documents folder is
% in some environment path.
[startidx, endidx] = regexp(myDocPath,'%[A-Z]+%');
if ~isempty(startidx)
    myDocPath = fullfile(getenv(myDocPath(startidx(1)+1:endidx(1)-1)), myDocPath(endidx(1)+1:end));
end

get 'Documents' path in Matlab

1 Answers