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- From: mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Matt Wette)
- Subject: FAQ
- Message-ID: <1993Jan27.000517.27129@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>
- Originator: mwette@mr-ed
- Sender: usenet@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Network Noise Transfer Service)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: mr-ed
- Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:05:17 GMT
- Lines: 342
-
-
- This FAQ is maintained by
-
- Matt Wette
- M/S 198-326
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- 4800 Oak Grove Dr.
- Pasadena, CA 91109
- mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov
-
- The latest version can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from
-
- csi.jpl.nasa.gov as /pub/matlab/FAQ
-
-
- This FAQ is very young and, hence, somewhat incomplete. Contributions
- and suggestions on organization are welcomed.
-
-
- Last update: Tue Jan 26 16:00:54 PST 1993
-
-
- Matlab Frequently Asked Questions
- _________________________________
-
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
-
-
- General
- _______
-
- 1) What is Matlab?
- 2) What is the charter for the comp.soft-sys.matlab group?
- 3) What commercially available Matlab-type environments are sold?
- 4) What non-commercial Matlab environments exist?
- 5) How can I join a Matlab user group?
- 6) Are there any software archives?
- 7) Are there any publications related to Matlab?
- 8) Are there any e-mail addresses related to Matlab:
- 9) What is Simulab?
- 10) Can I use C and Fortran programs with Matlab?
-
- Other Systems
- _____________
-
- 11) Are there any standards for Matlab-type tools?
- 12) What is Xmath?
-
- Quick Little Matlab Eval Hacks
- ______________________________
-
- 13) How can I load-from or save-to a file whose name is in a string variable?
- 14) How can I make a variable global from within a function?
-
-
- ==============================================================================
-
- General
- _______
-
- 1) What is Matlab?
-
- Matlab is the name used to refer to the class of matrix cal-
- culator environments derived from the first, called MATLAB.
- MATLAB was developed by Cleve Moler in the late 1970s at the
- University of New Mexico and other locations with support
- from the National Science Foundation. Since then, many
- clones have been developed or are in development commercial-
- ly, in government and university labs, and so forth. In
- this document, Matlab may refer to the collective set of
- MATLAB_based environment or it may refer to the current im-
- plementation developed by The MathWorks, Inc.
-
- 2) What is the charter for the comp.soft-sys.matlab group?
-
- The newsgroup 'comp.soft-sys.matlab' is a forum for discuss-
- ing issues related to the use of Matlab, the scientific cal-
- culation and visualization package from MathWorks Inc. This
- includes discussion of similar software packages which are
- also derived from the original public domain Matlab, such as
- Xmath from Integrated Systems Inc.
-
- Appropriate discussion in the group will include both gen-
- eral Matlab issues and platform-specific questions, and dis-
- cussion comparing Matlab to other systems.
-
- 3) What commercially available Matlab-type environments are sold?
-
- In alphabetical order:
-
- Ctrl-C from Systems Control Technology
-
- CAE Systems Department
- 2300 Geng Road
- Palo Alto, CA 94303
- Tel: 800-227-1910
- Tel: 415-494-2233
- Fax: 415-496-6595
-
- Pro-Matlab from The MathWorks, Inc.
-
- Cochituate Place
- 24 Prime Park Way
- Natick, MA 01760
- 508-653-1415
- Email: info@mathworks.com
-
- Xmath from Integrated Systems, Inc.
-
- 3260 Jay St.
- Santa Clara, CA 95054-3309
- Tel: (408) 980-1500
- Fax: (408) 980-0400
- Email: xmath-info@isi.com
-
- 4) What non-commercial Matlab environments exist?
-
- In alphabetical order:
-
- `Caesy' is being developed by Matt Wette
- (mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- This will be released to COSMIC soon. It will provide data
- structures, conversion to C-code, and many other features.
- See
-
- M.Wette
- "Caesy: A Computer-Aided Engineering System"
- Proc. 1992 Symp. on Computer-Aided Control System Design
- Napa, CA, March 1992
-
- `Mat/C' developed at Lawrence Livermore National Labora-
- tories by Don Gavel. This is not publically available.
-
- `MaTX', an interpreter and compiler, developed at Tokyo In-
- stitute of Technology. See
-
- M. Koga and K. Furuta, "MaTX: A High-Performance Programming
- Language (Interpreter and Compiler) for Scientific and
- Engineering Computation," Proc. 1992 Symp. on Computer-Aided
- Control System Design, Napa, CA, March 1992
-
- `Octave', written at the University of Texas, is available
- via anonymous ftp from
-
- ftp.che.utexas.edu in /pub/octave/octave-M.N.tar.Z
-
- where M and N stand for version numbers. For more informa-
- tion contact
-
- John W. Eaton
- jwe@che.utexas.edu
- Department of Chemical Engineering
- The University of Texas at Austin
-
- `RLab', written by Ian Searle, is free software.
-
- `SFPACK' developed at the University of Waterloo by Grantham
- Pang (pang@watale.waterloo.edu). See
-
- G.K.H. Pang, M. Vidyasagar, A.J. Heunis,
- "Development of a New Generation of Interactive CACSD,"
- IEEE Control Systems Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 5, Aug, 1990.
-
- 5) How can I join a Matlab user group?
-
- To join the user group, send your name, affiliation and ad-
- dress to:
-
- matlab-users-request@mcs.anl.gov
-
- For European user groups, contact:
-
- France: Alain Baron
- phone: 33/1 45 34 23 91
- fax: 33/1 45 07 08 06
- Germany: Dr. Ingrid Baush-Gall
- phone: 49/89 323 2625
- fax: 49/89 323 1063
- Sweden: Svante Littmarck
- phone: 46/8 15 30 22
- fax: 48/8 15 76 35
- email: info@comsol.se
-
- Switzerland: Carl Bergstrom
- phone: 031/961 70 11
- fax: 031/961 12 82
- email: comsol@clients.switch.ch
-
- UK: Peter Campbell
- phone: 44/22 342 0722
- fax: 44/32 342 3580
-
- 6) Are there any software archives?
-
- Yes. Matlab User Group software archive contains more than
- 1MB of user-contributed code. This archive is located on
- NETLIB server of Oak Ridge National Laboratories. To learn
- more, send following message:
-
- send index
- send index from matlab
- to:
-
- netlib@ornl.gov
- For contributions to the archive, send e-mail to:
-
- matlab-users-request@mcs.anl.gov
-
- 7) Are there any publications related to Matlab?
-
- Yes, Math Works Inc. publishes a quarterly magazine called
- MathWorks Newsletter, giving info. on products (new ver-
- sions, releases, toolboxes), matlab user group, matlab short
- courses, related texts etc.
-
- 8) Are there any e-mail addresses related to Matlab:
-
- Yes. Some are:
-
- - tech@mathworks.com :technical support for MathWorks products
- - suggest@mathworks.com :product enhancement suggestions
- - bugs@mathworks.com :bug reports
- - doc@mathworks.com :documentation error reports
- - register@mathworks.com :user and product registration
- - info@mathworks.com :sales, pricing, general info.
- - netlib@ornl.gov :software archive contact (see below)
- - matlab-users-request@mcs.anl.gov : user group (see below)
-
- 9) What is Simulab?
-
- Simulab is a program from MathWorks for modelling and
- analyzing nonlinear dynamic systems. Built on Matlab, Simu-
- lab offers a wide range of capabilities for simulating
- linear, nonlinear, continuous, discrete and hybrid models.
- Simulab is suited for designing and analyzing automatic con-
- trol systems, yet it is also appropriate for anyone in-
- terested in gaining insight into the behavior of real-world
- systems. [MWorks Newsletter Spring 1991]
-
- Simulab is renamed as Simulink when added improved and new
- capabilities.
-
- 10) Can I use C and Fortran programs with Matlab?
-
- Matlab's MEX-file facility allows user to use C and Fortran
- subroutines as Matlab m-files. It is also possible to use
- Matlab as a computational engine for C/Fortran subroutines.
-
-
-
-
-
- Other Systems
- _____________
-
- 11) Are there any standards for Matlab-type tools?
-
- There is an IFAC/IEEE-CSS Working Group developing standards
- and guidelines for these tools. A proposed standard command
- language was developed, is described in the document "Com-
- mand Language Standard for CACSD Software" and is available
- from
-
- Magnus Rimvall
- Control Systems Laboratory, GE-CRD
- Schenectady, NY 12301
-
- 12) What is Xmath?
-
- From mesaros@isi.com: Xmath is an interactive mathematics,
- scripting, and graphics environment for X Window worksta-
- tions. It has features which represent a significant im-
- provement on matlab-type software tools, including:
-
- - Object-oriented scripting language.
- - "Point-and-click" color graphics.
- - Visual debugging tool.
- - LNX and C-callable libraries.
- - Programmable MOTIF GUI layer.
-
- Xmath from Integrated Systems Inc. is available on the In-
- ternet via FTP from isi.com. If you would like to download
- Xmath to view the Xmath Interactive demo, do the following:
-
- From the UNIX/Shell environment, type:
- ftp isi.com (if the host is unknown, try ftp 192.73.222.1)
- When asked for name/user, type:
- anonymous
- When asked for the password, simply type your e-mail address.
-
- Once your e-mail address is accepted, and if the maximum
- number of ftp clients has not been exceeded, the connection
- will be made and a list of instructions will appear. Simply
- follow that list of instructions to transfer a copy of Xmath
- to your system.
-
-
-
-
-
- Quick Little Matlab Eval Hacks
- ______________________________
-
- 13) How can I load-from or save-to a file whose name is in a string variable?
-
- From Matt Wette <mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>, works with Pro-
- Matlab v3.5:
-
- name = 'xyz.mat';
- eval(['save ', name]);
- eval(['load ', name]);
-
- 14) How can I make a variable global from within a function?
-
- Adopted from routines by Laura Needles and Mike Kantner
- (<lohrah@csi.jpl.nasa.gov> and <rainbow@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>).
- First define the script file `mkglobal.m', containing the
- following:
-
- function [] = mkglobal(var)
- % MKGLOBAL mkglobal(var) - make string var a global
- % variable (within a function)
- if ~exist('mkglobal_var'), mkglobal_1; end;
- mkglobal_var = var;
- mkglobal_2
-
- Then define the script file `mkglobal_1.m' as
-
- global mkglobal_var
-
- and the script file `mkglobal_2.m' as
-
- eval(['global ', mkglobal_var]);
-
- This works with Pro-Matlab v3.5. The problem with globals
- has been fixed in Pro-Matlab v4.0.
-
-
- --
- mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov
-