From: mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Matt Wette)
Subject: FAQ
Originator: mwette@mr-ed
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:05:17 GMT


This FAQ is maintained by

     Matt Wette 
     M/S 198-326
     Jet Propulsion Laboratory
     4800 Oak Grove Dr.
     Pasadena, CA 91109
     mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov

The latest version can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from

     csi.jpl.nasa.gov  as  /pub/matlab/FAQ


This FAQ is very young and, hence, somewhat incomplete.  Contributions
and suggestions on organization are welcomed.


Last update: Tue Jan 26 16:00:54 PST 1993


                Matlab Frequently Asked Questions
                _________________________________


                            SYNOPSIS



                             General
                             _______

 1) What is Matlab?
 2) What is the charter for the comp.soft-sys.matlab group?
 3) What commercially available Matlab-type environments are sold?
 4) What non-commercial Matlab environments exist?
 5) How can I join a Matlab user group?
 6) Are there any software archives?
 7) Are there any publications related to Matlab?
 8) Are there any e-mail addresses related to Matlab:
 9) What is Simulab?
 10) Can I use C and Fortran programs with Matlab?

                          Other Systems
                          _____________

 11) Are there any standards for Matlab-type tools?
 12) What is Xmath?

                 Quick Little Matlab Eval Hacks
                 ______________________________

 13) How can I load-from or save-to a file whose name is in a string variable?
 14) How can I make a variable global from within a function?


 ==============================================================================

                             General
                             _______

1) What is Matlab?

     Matlab is the name used to refer to the class of matrix cal-
     culator  environments derived from the first, called MATLAB.
     MATLAB was developed by Cleve Moler in the late 1970s at the
     University  of  New  Mexico and other locations with support
     from the National  Science  Foundation.   Since  then,  many
     clones have been developed or are in development commercial-
     ly, in government and university labs,  and  so  forth.   In
     this  document,  Matlab  may  refer to the collective set of
     MATLAB_based environment or it may refer to the current  im-
     plementation developed by The MathWorks, Inc.

2) What is the charter for the comp.soft-sys.matlab group?

     The newsgroup 'comp.soft-sys.matlab' is a forum for discuss-
     ing issues related to the use of Matlab, the scientific cal-
     culation and visualization package from MathWorks Inc.  This
     includes  discussion  of similar software packages which are
     also derived from the original public domain Matlab, such as
     Xmath from Integrated Systems Inc.

     Appropriate discussion in the group will include  both  gen-
     eral Matlab issues and platform-specific questions, and dis-
     cussion comparing Matlab to other systems.

3) What commercially available Matlab-type environments are sold?

     In alphabetical order:

     Ctrl-C from Systems Control Technology

          CAE Systems Department
          2300 Geng Road
          Palo Alto, CA 94303
          Tel: 800-227-1910
          Tel: 415-494-2233
          Fax: 415-496-6595

     Pro-Matlab from The MathWorks, Inc.

          Cochituate Place
          24 Prime Park Way
          Natick, MA 01760
          508-653-1415
          Email: info@mathworks.com

     Xmath from Integrated Systems, Inc.

          3260 Jay St.
          Santa Clara, CA  95054-3309
          Tel: (408) 980-1500
          Fax: (408) 980-0400
          Email: xmath-info@isi.com

4) What non-commercial Matlab environments exist?

     In alphabetical order:

     `Caesy'    is    being    developed    by     Matt     Wette
     (mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov)  at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
     This will be released to COSMIC soon.  It will provide  data
     structures,  conversion  to C-code, and many other features.
     See

          M.Wette
          "Caesy: A Computer-Aided Engineering System"
          Proc. 1992 Symp. on Computer-Aided Control System Design
          Napa, CA, March 1992

     `Mat/C' developed at  Lawrence  Livermore  National  Labora-
     tories by Don Gavel.  This is not publically available.

     `MaTX', an interpreter and compiler, developed at Tokyo  In-
     stitute of Technology.  See

          M. Koga and K. Furuta, "MaTX: A High-Performance Programming
          Language (Interpreter and Compiler) for Scientific and
          Engineering Computation," Proc. 1992 Symp. on Computer-Aided
          Control System Design, Napa, CA, March 1992

     `Octave', written at the University of Texas,  is  available
     via anonymous ftp from

          ftp.che.utexas.edu in /pub/octave/octave-M.N.tar.Z

     where M and N stand for version numbers.  For more  informa-
     tion contact

          John W. Eaton
          jwe@che.utexas.edu
          Department of Chemical Engineering
          The University of Texas at Austin

     `RLab', written by Ian Searle, is free software.

     `SFPACK' developed at the University of Waterloo by Grantham
     Pang (pang@watale.waterloo.edu).  See

          G.K.H. Pang, M. Vidyasagar, A.J. Heunis,
          "Development of a New Generation of Interactive CACSD,"
          IEEE Control Systems Magazine,  Vol. 10, No. 5, Aug, 1990.

5) How can I join a Matlab user group?

     To join the user group, send your name, affiliation and  ad-
     dress to:

          matlab-users-request@mcs.anl.gov

     For European user groups, contact:

          France:        Alain Baron
                         phone: 33/1 45 34 23 91
                         fax: 33/1 45 07 08 06
          Germany:       Dr. Ingrid Baush-Gall
                         phone: 49/89 323 2625
                         fax: 49/89 323 1063
          Sweden:        Svante Littmarck
                         phone: 46/8 15 30 22
                         fax: 48/8 15 76 35
                         email: info@comsol.se

          Switzerland:   Carl Bergstrom
                         phone: 031/961 70 11
                         fax: 031/961 12 82
                         email: comsol@clients.switch.ch

          UK:            Peter Campbell
                         phone: 44/22 342 0722
                         fax: 44/32 342 3580

6) Are there any software archives?

     Yes. Matlab User Group software archive contains  more  than
     1MB  of  user-contributed  code.  This archive is located on
     NETLIB server of Oak Ridge National Laboratories.  To  learn
     more, send following message:

          send index
          send index from matlab
     to:

          netlib@ornl.gov
     For contributions to the archive, send e-mail to:

          matlab-users-request@mcs.anl.gov

7) Are there any publications related to Matlab?

     Yes, Math Works Inc. publishes a quarterly  magazine  called
     MathWorks  Newsletter,  giving  info.  on products (new ver-
     sions, releases, toolboxes), matlab user group, matlab short
     courses, related texts etc.

8) Are there any e-mail addresses related to Matlab:

     Yes. Some are:

          - tech@mathworks.com        :technical support for MathWorks products
          - suggest@mathworks.com     :product enhancement suggestions
          - bugs@mathworks.com        :bug reports
          - doc@mathworks.com         :documentation error reports
          - register@mathworks.com    :user and product registration
          - info@mathworks.com        :sales, pricing, general info.
          - netlib@ornl.gov           :software archive contact (see below)
          - matlab-users-request@mcs.anl.gov  : user group (see below)

9) What is Simulab?

     Simulab is  a  program  from  MathWorks  for  modelling  and
     analyzing  nonlinear dynamic systems. Built on Matlab, Simu-
     lab offers a  wide  range  of  capabilities  for  simulating
     linear,  nonlinear,  continuous, discrete and hybrid models.
     Simulab is suited for designing and analyzing automatic con-
     trol  systems,  yet  it  is  also appropriate for anyone in-
     terested in gaining insight into the behavior of  real-world
     systems. [MWorks Newsletter Spring 1991]

     Simulab is renamed as Simulink when added improved  and  new
     capabilities.

10) Can I use C and Fortran programs with Matlab?

     Matlab's MEX-file facility allows user to use C and  Fortran
     subroutines  as  Matlab  m-files. It is also possible to use
     Matlab as a computational engine for C/Fortran subroutines.





                          Other Systems
                          _____________

11) Are there any standards for Matlab-type tools?

     There is an IFAC/IEEE-CSS Working Group developing standards
     and guidelines for these tools.  A proposed standard command
     language was developed, is described in the  document  "Com-
     mand  Language Standard for CACSD Software" and is available
     from

          Magnus Rimvall
          Control Systems Laboratory, GE-CRD
          Schenectady, NY 12301

12) What is Xmath?

     From mesaros@isi.com: Xmath is an  interactive  mathematics,
     scripting,  and  graphics  environment for X Window worksta-
     tions.  It has features which represent  a  significant  im-
     provement on matlab-type software tools, including:

          - Object-oriented scripting language.
          - "Point-and-click" color graphics.
          - Visual debugging tool.
          - LNX and C-callable libraries.
          - Programmable MOTIF GUI layer.

     Xmath from Integrated Systems Inc. is available on  the  In-
     ternet  via FTP from isi.com.  If you would like to download
     Xmath to view the Xmath Interactive demo, do the following:

          From the UNIX/Shell environment, type:
          ftp isi.com  (if the host is unknown, try ftp 192.73.222.1)
          When asked for name/user, type:
          anonymous
          When asked for the password, simply type your e-mail address.

     Once your e-mail address is accepted,  and  if  the  maximum
     number  of ftp clients has not been exceeded, the connection
     will be made and a list of instructions will appear.  Simply
     follow that list of instructions to transfer a copy of Xmath
     to your system.





                 Quick Little Matlab Eval Hacks
                 ______________________________

13) How can I load-from or save-to a file whose name is in a string variable?

     From Matt Wette <mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>, works  with  Pro-
     Matlab v3.5:

          name = 'xyz.mat';
          eval(['save ', name]);
          eval(['load ', name]);

14) How can I make a variable global from within a function?

     Adopted from routines by  Laura  Needles  and  Mike  Kantner
     (<lohrah@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>  and <rainbow@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>).
     First define the script file  `mkglobal.m',  containing  the
     following:

          function [] = mkglobal(var)
          % MKGLOBAL      mkglobal(var) - make string var a global
          %               variable (within a function)
          if ~exist('mkglobal_var'), mkglobal_1; end;
          mkglobal_var = var;
          mkglobal_2

     Then define the script file `mkglobal_1.m' as

          global mkglobal_var

     and the script file `mkglobal_2.m' as

          eval(['global ', mkglobal_var]);

     This works with Pro-Matlab v3.5.  The problem  with  globals
     has been fixed in Pro-Matlab v4.0.


-- 
mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.matlab