samer@43: % jfile - construct Java File object from path string
samer@43: % jfile :: text -> java.io.File.
samer@0: function f=jfile(path)
samer@0: 	% The problem was that file names with accents in where not being found 
samer@0: 	% when converted to Java file names.
samer@0: 	% I have no idea what is going on here but it seems to work
samer@43: 	% f=java.io.File(java.lang.String(unicode2native(path,'latin1'),'UTF8'));
samer@43: 
samer@43: 	% SA 2014: UPDATE
samer@43: 	% Now I have a faint idea about what is going on here. Matlab ignores the
samer@43: 	% LANG environment variable, and previously was using LATIN1 as it's
samer@43: 	% feature('DefaultCharacterSet'). This meant that the entire Java subsystem
samer@43: 	% was starting up with LATIN1 as its chacterset. Now, I have found a way
samer@43: 	% to persuade Matlab to use Unicode, and indeed, for the JVM to use unicode
samer@43: 	% also. This means that the old version of this function was no good.
samer@43: 	% Instead, we should use unicode2native with no 2nd argument.
samer@43: 	f=java.io.File(java.lang.String(unicode2native(path),'UTF8'));