Some useful Matlab tips

Kevin Murphy.
Last updated 4 December 2002.

Matlab tips by marios athineos
Matlab programming style guide
Lots of matlab tutorials.
Getting started in Matlab, pdf file from the Mathworks.
comp.soft-sys.matlab usenet archive
Matlab Central is an excellent repository of free Matlab software.
The matlab emacs mode is extremely useful if you use emacs as your editor. (Emacs runs on unix and windows.)
Type matlab -nosplash to prevent the annoying splash screen from appearing whenever you startup. Use matlab -nodesktop to run matlab in text-only mode.
When using unix, I run matlab in text mode (matlab -nodesktop) inside an emacs shell buffer, so I can cut and paste easily between my source code and the command line, without using the mouse. (If anyone knows how to do this in Windows, please let me know! The problem seems to be that matlab cannot run inside a windows cmd window.)
Create a startup.m file in your matlab directory, and add any commands that you want executed automatically whenever you start up Matlab. In Windows, this file will probably be called C:\matlab\bin\startup.m or maybe C:\matlab\R12\work\startup.m. In Unix, this file should be called ~username/matlab/startup.m. For example, my Windows startup.m file reads as follows
```
addpath C:\murphyk\matlab\BNT
add_BNT_to_path
format compact
dbstop if error
dbstop if warning
```
The format compact command makes the output use less whitespace. The dbstop commands are explained below.
Type dbstop if error and dbstop if warning when you start your Matlab session. This will pop you into the debugger if there is an error/ warning, e.g., if an assertion is violated. dbstack will tell you where the error occured. dbup/dbdown ley you change stack frames inside the debugger. dbquit gets you out of the debugger. Matlab supports full symbolic debugging and interactive execution.
Put a keyboard command in the source code at a point where you want to enter interactive mode. This lets you inspect variables etc. Use dbcont to continue with the program execution.
help foo will print the documentation for function 'foo'.
lookfor foo will find all functions that mention 'foo' in their documentation (comments at the beginning of the file).
which foo will tell you the full filename of the function that implements 'foo'. If foo is an overloaded name (i.e., a class method), type which bar/foo where bar is the name of the class.
addpath foo adds directory 'foo' to the search path.
type foo will display the file 'foo'.
In Matlab 5.3 and later, profile on turns on the profiler. In older versions, you can only profile a specific function, using profile fn_name. After running the function, type profile report or in version 6.5 profview.
tic starts a clock and toc stops one. This can be used to time code.
Type format compact when you start your Matlab session. This will make the output format take less space.
Type clear classes (rather than restartting matlab) if you change a class constructor definition.
vec(ndx) = 1 assigns all the elements of 'vec' specified by the index array 'ndx' the value 1 (parallel assignment).
... is a continuation character, needed if an input line is split across more than one screen width. It MUST be preceeded by a space.
Filenames are not allowed to have - (minus sign) in them: use _ (underscore) instead.
Directories that start with '@' represent classes. This convention is required.
If C is a cell array, C(ndx) is a cell array with elements specified by ndx, but C{ndx} is a comma separated list of the values inside the specified cells. Example: C={1,2,3} so C{1} = 1 but C(1) = {1}.