Efficiently initialize list of consecutively named variables for file import

Question

Let's say I have the code:

     $runningLogFile0 = "m0.txt";
     $runningLogFile1 = "m1.txt";
     $runningLogFile2 = "m2.txt";

     If[FileExistsQ[$runningLogFile0], Get[$runningLogFile0], Print["Error: Noexist"];];
     If[FileExistsQ[$runningLogFile1], Get[$runningLogFile1], Print["Error: Noexist"];];
     If[FileExistsQ[$runningLogFile2], Get[$runningLogFile2], Print["Error: Noexist"];];

that I use to read in a list of consecutively named files, m0.txt,m1.txt, m2.txt. I want to make this code more efficient for reading in a large number of such files, for which it would be very tiresome to do in the above way.

Can I automate this with a Do or Table?

I thought something like

 Do["$runningLogFile" <> ToString[i] = "m"<>ToString[i]<>".txt";, {i, 1, 100}];

might work but apparently not.

Answer 1

One way to go about this is read in the file names - this way you don't have to explicitly check to see if they exist.

 path = SystemDialogInput["Directory", NotebookDirectory[]];
 fileNames = FileNames["*.txt", path];
 allFiles = Table[Import[fileNames[[num]]], {num, 1, Length[fileNames]}];

This reads the names of all files (in the specified path directory) that have the extension ".txt" and places the file names in a list called fileNames. It then reads all the files in this list. They can be be named anything at all, as long as they have the specified extension.

Of course you could use a different extension than .txt, you could specify the directory path in the code (instead of using the GUI), you can use Get instead of Import, and Do instead of Table. You could also filter out files you don't want before importing, if this is desirable.

Answer 2

If you don't want to use a table:

SetDirectory[NotebookDirectory[]];
allfiles = Import[#] & /@ FileNames["*.txt"];