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Shell Escape Function Example

It is sometimes useful to access your own C or Fortran programs using shell escape functions. Shell escape functions use the shell escape command ! to make external stand-alone programs act like new MATLAB® functions.

For example, the following function, garfield.m, uses an external function, gareqn, to find the solution to Garfield's equation.

function y = garfield(a,b,q,r)
save gardata a b q r
!gareqn
load gardata

This function:

  1. Saves the input arguments a, b, q, and r to a MAT-file in the workspace using the save command.

  2. Uses the shell escape operator to access a C or Fortran program called gareqn that uses the workspace variables to perform its computation. gareqn writes its results to the gardata MAT-file.

  3. Loads the gardata MAT-file to obtain the results.

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