matlabShell is an engine that can be used with matlab.el. It's so naive that I don't understand why it isn't common use and suspect I've missed somthing elementary. This directory has:


MatlabShell is a simple engine that seems to work with matlab.el Version 2.1.1. Testing has been brief, and only under NT4.0. There are no windows-isms in it and it should actually work anywhere it can be recompiled with the engine library.

It's a very naive approach; I am new to Matlab and welcome improvements to make it useful, especially if I am missing the point altogether. Probably if it doesn't work with gud it is not that interesting, though at least it avoids the nuisance of switching between emacs and standard Matlab command processor.

Using the executable:
Install it where convenient. You'll set some emacs lisp to tell matlab.el where it is. See usage notes below.
Help from me:
Probably not much. If it's worth anything, maybe it will be discussed in matlab-emacs@mathworks.com
Help to me:
Very welcome. :-)
Rebuilding:
I set a MATLAB environment variable and build the executable with a batch file containing the line 
mex -f %MATLAB%\bin\msvc50engmatopts.bat matlabShell.c
Usage notes
These are the usage notes for matlabShell.exe, version 1.0, a matlab shell engine suitable for use with Windows NT and probably for Windows 95. Install this executable in your execution path, and use it with matlab.el version 2.2, which can be obtained from ftp.mathworks.com.
 
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
* any later version.
* If you did not receive a copy of the GPL you can get it at
* //http://www.fsf.org
 
 
matlabShell.exe can be used standalone in a command window, and many installation mysteries can be cleared up by doing so, thereby helping to determine whether any problems are with the shell installation or with the matlab.el installation.
 
I don't promise to answer questions, which should therefore be mailed to the matlab-emacs interest list matlab-emacs@mathworks.com or posted to comp.soft-sys.matlab.

/* usage notes
1.0 02dec98 ram@cs.umb.edu Your emacs initialization should have something like this in it:

(autoload 'matlab-shell "matlab" "Interactive Matlab mode." t)
( setq matlab-shell-command "D:/users/ram/matlab/engine/matlabShell.exe"
matlab-shell-command-switches "500 10000"
shell-command-echoes nil))

matlab-shell-command should evaluate to a string with the full path name of the executable of this shell.

With matlab.el 2.2 you may need to have (load "font-lock") in your emacs initialization if nothing else loads it. The symptom of needing this will be complaints about some emacs font stuff not found while loading matlab.el

matlab-shell-command-switches is optional. It should evaluate to a string with either one or two integers. The first is the size in bytes of the buffer the program uses for input, and the second, if present, is the size of the buffer to which Matlab returns its output. If only the first is resent, the second is set to 8 times the first. If the string is not set it defaults to "", and the shelll treats it as "1024 8192". Previous releases had "500  5000" as the suggested value, but 5000 characters may be rather small for output.

Beginning with release 0.93, the lisp variable matlab-shell-echoes must have value nil. matlab.el sets this to t, but on NT, the symptom of having this t is that the command you give to matlab will not be echoed in the matlabShell buffer, because the matlab.el thinks that matlabShell will echo it. matlabShell doesn't echo in order that it can also work reasonably from a DOS command window.

If you want to recompile and link this code do it with the file linkit.bat which should look something like this:

mex -f %MATLAB%\bin\msvc50engmatopts.bat matlabShell.c
You can only do this with MS VC++ 5.0.

Known issues using matlabShell.exe 1.0 with matlab.el version2.2

1. the function matlab-shell-run-region (C-c C-r) does not leave the cursor positioned in the right place.

2. The function matlab-shell-save-and-go (C-c C-s) passes only the file name to the shell, not the full pathname. Consequently, if the file you are editing is not the one found on your Matlab path, it is not the one executed. If the current directory is not on your path at all and there is no file of the same name, Matlab will complain that there is no such file. If there is one on your path with the same name, you will come to believe that your edits are having no effect.

*/
 

 
Mysteries:
Contrary to the API documentation, in Matlab 5.2.0, engEvalString() seems to return a positive integer no matter whether the engine has exited or not. The integer is different for each invocation, but constant throughout the execution of the engine shell, so I suppose it is derived from the process id or something. Any ideas?
whoami:
Bob Morris
ram@cs.umb.edu