Hi,
I'm writing an algorithm where the user selects the directory & Matlab then looks for files in the directory that fall into a specific format. 
The files are outputs of a logger and are named as: DATA-001.CSV, DATA-002.CSV....... Looking up help I found that >>dir *DATA*.CSV in the cmd prompt gives me all the files in that folder but I cannot save it as a variable  >> x= dir *DATA*.csv
 x= dir *DATA*.csv
             |
Error: Unexpected MATLAB operator.

To sum up the objectives are:
Input: Path to the folder that has all the files
Output: Files are sequential='1' and Number of files=someNumber
Files are not Sequential='0' and disp('Files are not sequential. Please check the output data'
Logic: Look for files labelled as DATA-001.CSV until all the files are exhausted while checking for sequence (Sequence example: DATA-001.CSV, DATA-002.CSV.....). I'm planning to check for sequence using strcmp in a for loop.

If anything is unclear or if you have a faster or another way to solve this problem feel free to reply to this posting.
Thank you for your time.

I've done something similar before, using regexp.  Here are two lines that'll push you down the right path:
>> x = '*.txt';
>> dir(x)
license.txt     patents.txt     trademarks.txt  

I think this function will do what you want to do. I assume that you want sequential=false if there are any missing files.  You can't assume that the files are in a particular order when dir() finds them, so we sort the numbers in the function.

function [sequential, numFiles] = ReadPath( Path)
   files = dir( [Path '/DATA*.csv']);  %get files matching pattern
   files = { files.name};   %get only file names
   expr = @(f) str2double( regexp(f, '(\d+)', 'match'));  %regular expression
             %  assumes that only one set of digits appears in filename
   nums = cellfun(expr, files, 'UniformOutput', true);
   nums = sort(nums);           %file numbers, sorted in order
   checkorder = nums(1):1:nums(end);    %comparison sequence that is in order
   sequential = isequal( nums, checkorder);
   if ~sequential,
      disp('Files are not sequential. Please check the output data');
      numFiles = 0;
   else
      numFiles = length(nums);
   end
end

"Nagmesh Kumar" wrote in message <jtnf8j$b3$1@newscl01ah.mathworks.com>...
> Hi,
> I'm writing an algorithm where the user selects the directory & Matlab then looks for files in the directory that fall into a specific format. 
> The files are outputs of a logger and are named as: DATA-001.CSV, DATA-002.CSV....... Looking up help I found that >>dir *DATA*.CSV in the cmd prompt gives me all the files in that folder but I cannot save it as a variable  >> x= dir *DATA*.csv
>  x= dir *DATA*.csv
>              |
> Error: Unexpected MATLAB operator.
> 
> To sum up the objectives are:
> Input: Path to the folder that has all the files
> Output: Files are sequential='1' and Number of files=someNumber
> Files are not Sequential='0' and disp('Files are not sequential. Please check the output data'
> Logic: Look for files labelled as DATA-001.CSV until all the files are exhausted while checking for sequence (Sequence example: DATA-001.CSV, DATA-002.CSV.....). I'm planning to check for sequence using strcmp in a for loop.
> 
> If anything is unclear or if you have a faster or another way to solve this problem feel free to reply to this posting.
> Thank you for your time.

"Nagmesh Kumar" <nagmeshkumar@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:jtnf8j$b3$1@newscl01ah.mathworks.com...
> Hi,
> I'm writing an algorithm where the user selects the directory & Matlab 
> then looks for files in the directory that fall into a specific format. 
> The files are outputs of a logger and are named as: DATA-001.CSV, 
> DATA-002.CSV....... Looking up help I found that >>dir *DATA*.CSV in the 
> cmd prompt gives me all the files in that folder but I cannot save it as a 
> variable  >> x= dir *DATA*.csv
> x= dir *DATA*.csv
>             |
> Error: Unexpected MATLAB operator.

You can't call a function both with an output argument and with command 
form. If you want the function to return one or more output arguments, you 
will need to use the function form.

x = dir('*DATA*.csv');

-- 
Steve Lord
slord@mathworks.com
To contact Technical Support use the Contact Us link on 
http://www.mathworks.com 

Ben, Matt and Steve
Thank you very much for your help. It helped me compile the code by the deadline. This is the code I wrote. I'm just putting it out there so that others may use it.
Partial Code:
 case 'Folder'
%             User prompt to choose directory
            directory= uigetdir('R:\WheelchairMonitoring',...
                'Select the folder with the Gulf Coast Acclerometer data');
%             get the right path for finding files 
%             with filename DATA and .csv extension
            sdir=strcat(directory,'\*DATA*.CSV');
%             get the files with DATA as filename & .csv as extension
%             in the choosen folder
            files=dir(sdir);
%             Check for sequence in filename
            for i=1:length(files)
                if( str2double(files(i,1).name(6:8))==i)
%                     Gather filenames that are sequential
                    filename=fullfile(directory,files(i).name);
%                     Gather data from each file
                    dataFolder(i,1)=parseGCDCdata(filename);
                 
                else
                    disp('The files are not sequentially recorded check the folder');
                end
            end
%             Now we have a bunch of structures that have 
%             each accelerometer data
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Once again thank you for your support
Nagmesh
"Steven_Lord" <slord@mathworks.com> wrote in message <jtpb28$fq$1@newscl01ah.mathworks.com>...
> 
> 
> "Nagmesh Kumar" <nagmeshkumar@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:jtnf8j$b3$1@newscl01ah.mathworks.com...
> > Hi,
> > I'm writing an algorithm where the user selects the directory & Matlab 
> > then looks for files in the directory that fall into a specific format. 
> > The files are outputs of a logger and are named as: DATA-001.CSV, 
> > DATA-002.CSV....... Looking up help I found that >>dir *DATA*.CSV in the 
> > cmd prompt gives me all the files in that folder but I cannot save it as a 
> > variable  >> x= dir *DATA*.csv
> > x= dir *DATA*.csv
> >             |
> > Error: Unexpected MATLAB operator.
> 
> You can't call a function both with an output argument and with command 
> form. If you want the function to return one or more output arguments, you 
> will need to use the function form.
> 
> x = dir('*DATA*.csv');
> 
> -- 
> Steve Lord
> slord@mathworks.com
> To contact Technical Support use the Contact Us link on 
> http://www.mathworks.com