External Interfaces/API

Calling MATLAB from C and Fortran Programs

The MATLAB engine library is a set of routines that allows you to call MATLAB from your own programs, thereby employing MATLAB as a computation engine. MATLAB engine programs are C or Fortran programs that communicate with a separate MATLAB process via pipes (in UNIX) and through ActiveX on Windows. There is a library of functions provided with MATLAB that allows you to start and end the MATLAB process, send data to and from MATLAB, and send commands to be processed in MATLAB.

The following list summarizes the contents of this chapter:

Using the MATLAB Engine

Examples of Calling Engine Functions

Compiling and Linking Engine Programs

For additional information and support in building your applications, see the section entitled, Additional Information.

Using the MATLAB Engine

Some of the things you can do with the MATLAB engine are:

Call a math routine, for example, to invert an array or to compute an FFT from your own program. When employed in this manner, MATLAB is a powerful and programmable mathematical subroutine library.

Build an entire system for a specific task, for example, radar signature analysis or gas chromatography, where the front end (GUI) is programmed in C and the back end (analysis) is programmed in MATLAB, thereby shortening development time.

The MATLAB engine operates by running in the background as a separate process from your own program. This offers several advantages:

On UNIX, the MATLAB engine can run on your machine, or on any other UNIX machine on your network, including machines of a different architecture. Thus you could implement a user interface on your workstation and perform the computations on a faster machine located elsewhere on your network. The description of the engOpen function offers further information.

Instead of requiring that all of MATLAB be linked to your program (a substantial amount of code), only a small engine communication library is needed.

Debugging on Windows The Engine Library