Requirements to Build .NET Engine Programs

To set up your .NET environment for building engine applications:

• Make sure you have a supported version of .NET.

• Set environment variables.

• Build and run your .NET code.

Supported Versions of .NET

Build the engine application with a supported version of .NET. For version information, see MATLAB Interfaces to Other Languages. Install both the .NET SDK and the .NET Runtime from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download.

Run-Time Environment

To run your application, set one of these environment variables to the specified path.

Operating System	Variable	Path
Windows®	PATH	matlabroot\extern\bin\win64
macOS with Apple silicon	DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH	matlabroot/extern/bin/maca64
macOS with Intel®	DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH	matlabroot/extern/bin/maci64
Linux®	LD_LIBRARY_PATH	matlabroot/extern/bin/glnxa64:matlabroot/sys/os/glnxa64

Build and Run .NET Projects from CLI

Use the .NET command-line interface (CLI) along with a code editor to create .NET applications. For more information, see .NET CLI Overview in the Microsoft^® documentation. To work with C# examples shipped with MATLAB^®, see Test Your .NET Development Environment.

1. Open the operating system command prompt and navigate to a writable folder.

2. At the command line, set the run-time environment variable.

3. Create the project MyApp.

   dotnet new console --name MyApp

   This command creates a folder named MyApp that contains:

   • obj folder

   • MyApp.csproj project file

   • Program.cs C# source file

4. Open the project file in a text editor and add these references to the project using the <ItemGroup> tag. The files are in a folder defined by fullfile(matlabroot,"extern","dotnet","netstandard2.0").

   • MathWorks.MATLAB.Engine

   • MathWorks.MATLAB.Types

5. Enable use of the dynamic keyword by adding a reference to Microsoft.CSharp using the <PackageReference> tag.

6. Verify that the target framework is a supported version using the <TargetFramework> tag. For version information, see MATLAB Interfaces to Other Languages.

7. Your project file should resemble the following:

   <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
   
     <PropertyGroup>
       <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
       <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
     </PropertyGroup>
   
     <ItemGroup>
       <!-- Enables interop between .NET and MATLAB -->
       <Reference Include="MathWorks.MATLAB.Types" >
         <HintPath>$(matlabroot)/extern/dotnet/netstandard2.0/MathWorks.MATLAB.Types.dll</HintPath>
       </Reference>
       
       <!-- Provides an interface to MATLAB Engine API -->
       <Reference Include="MathWorks.MATLAB.Engine" >
         <HintPath>$(matlabroot)/extern/dotnet/netstandard2.0/MathWorks.MATLAB.Engine.dll</HintPath>
       </Reference>
       
       <!-- Enables using the 'dynamic' keyword -->
       <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CSharp" Version="4.7.0" />
     </ItemGroup>
   </Project>

8. Open the C# source file Program.cs and replace the existing code with the following code:

    Program.cs

   // *******************************************************************************
   //
   // Program.cs
   //
   // This example demonstrates how to use MATLAB .NET Assembly to build a simple 
   // component returning a magic square.
   //
   // Copyright 2022 The MathWorks, Inc.
   //
   // *******************************************************************************
   
   using System;
   using MathWorks.MATLAB.Engine;
   using MathWorks.MATLAB.Exceptions;
   using MathWorks.MATLAB.Types;
   
   namespace MathWorks.MATLAB.Engine.ConsoleExamples {
       public class Program {
    
           // The main entry point for the application.
           static void Main() {
               using (dynamic matlab = MATLABEngine.StartMATLAB()) {
                   double xIn = 5.0;
                   double [,] results = matlab.magic(xIn);
                   RunOptions opts = new RunOptions() { Nargout = 0 };
                   matlab.disp(opts, "Hello, MATLAB!");
                   for (int i = 0; i < results.GetLength(0); i++) {
                       for (int j = 0; j < results.GetLength(1); j++) {
                           Console.Write("{0} ", results[i, j]);
                       }
                       Console.WriteLine();
                   }
               }
           }
       }
   }

9. At the command line, build your C# project, specifying matlabroot. For example, if matlabroot is C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2022b, then type:

   cd MyApp
   dotnet build /p:matlabroot="C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2022b" MyApp.csproj

10. At the command line, run your application:

    dotnet run --no-build

    The application displays a magic square.

Build and Run .NET Projects from Microsoft Visual Studio

As an alternative to the interactive command line approach to creating a .NET application, you can create the application using Microsoft Visual Studio^®.

1. In Visual Studio, create a .NET 5.0 C# project named MyApp. For details, see the Create the app section in Create a .NET console application using Visual Studio in the Microsoft documentation.

2. In the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio, right-click the project name and select Add > Project Reference. In the Reference Manager window, click Browse and add these references. The files are in a folder defined by fullfile(matlabroot,"extern","dotnet","netstandard2.0").

   • MathWorks.MATLAB.Engine

   • MathWorks.MATLAB.Types

3. Open the C# source file Program.cs and replace the existing code with the code provided in the Open the C# source file step of the previous Build and Run .NET Projects from CLI section.

4. Build and run the application.