This code looks incomplete. The first line doesn't make much sense as it is written. dir() returns file/folder names if they match with the argument. So, dir('example*.txt') will return a structure with all files example1.txt, example2.txt and so on (if they exist in the current directory). You can then open them by fopen, such as fid=fopen(file_path(1).name); The '' argument will not open a file and just return -1 (file not found).
In case you get a valid file identifier, you can scroll through the file by the while loop, however, an end is missing here. The initialization lines do not make sense here as they will be rewritten to [] every iteration and not even be touched. The fgetl lines read one line of the file. So first, you read the pattern_size, then the pattern_hour and so on. You then try to find the file named as file_path. Maybe this file should be opened in further lines, but that's not included here.
Hope I could shed some light on this code.
