MATLAB Programming - A Guide to MATLAB for Beginners and Experienced Users - page 119

if the program runs without error.) If the output of your program consists only
of numbers, then str2num(data) will yield a row vector containing those
numbers. You can also use sscanf to extract numbers from the string data ;
type help sscanf for details.
➱

A program you run with ! , dos ,or unix must be in the current
directory or elsewhere in the path your system searches for
executable files; the MATLAB path will not be searched.

If you are creating a program that will require extensive communication
between MATLAB and an external FORTRAN or C program, then compiling
the external program as a MEX file will be more efficient than using dos or
unix . To do so, you must write some special instructions into the external
program and compile the program from within MATLAB using the command
mex . This will result in a file with the extension .mex that you can run from
within MATLAB just as you would run an M-file. The advantage is that a
compiled program will generally run muchfaster than an M-file, especially
when loops are involved.
The instructions you need to write into your program to compile it with mex
are described in MATLAB : Using MATLAB : External Interfaces/API in
the Help Browser and in the “MEX, API, & Compilers” section of the web site

http://www.mathworks.com/support/tech-notes

Look for the page entitled “Is there a tutorial for creating MEX-files with
emphasisonCMEX-files?”Theinstructionsdependtosomeextentonwhether
your program is written in FORTRAN or C, but they are not hard to learn if
youalreadyknowoneoftheselanguages.MATLABversion6alsoprovidesthe
MATLABJava Interface , which enables you to create and access Java objects
from within MATLAB.

File Input and Output
In Chapter 3 we discussed how to use save and load to transfer variables
betweentheWorkspaceandadiskfile.Bydefaultthevariablesarewrittenand
read in MATLAB's own binary format, which is signified by the file extension
.mat . You can also read and write text files, which can be useful for sharing
data withother programs. With save you type -ascii at the end of the line
to save numbers as text rounded to 8 digits, or -ascii -double for 16-digit
accuracy. With load the data are assumed to be in text format if the file name
does not end in .mat . This provides an alternative to importing data with dos