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engOpen (C and Fortran) - Start MATLAB engine session

C Syntax

#include "engine.h"
Engine *engOpen(const char *startcmd);

Fortran Syntax

mwPointer engOpen(startcmd)
character*(*) startcmd

Arguments

startcmd

String to start the MATLAB process. On Windows systems, the startcmd string must be NULL.

Returns

Pointer to an engine handle, or NULL if the open fails.

Description

This routine allows you to start a MATLAB process for the purpose of using MATLAB software as a computational engine.

engOpen starts a MATLAB process using the command specified in the string startcmd, establishes a connection, and returns a unique engine identifier, or NULL if the open fails.

On UNIX^[1] systems, if startcmd is NULL or the empty string, engOpen starts a MATLAB process on the current host using the command matlab. If startcmd is a hostname, engOpen starts a MATLAB process on the designated host by embedding the specified hostname string into the larger string:

"rsh hostname \"/bin/csh -c 'setenv DISPLAY\ 
	hostname:0; matlab'\""

If startcmd is any other string (has white space in it, or nonalphanumeric characters), the string is executed literally to start a MATLAB process.

On UNIX systems, engOpen performs the following steps:

1. Creates two pipes.

2. Forks a new process and sets up the pipes to pass stdin and stdout from MATLAB (parent) software to two file descriptors in the engine program (child).

3. Executes a command to run MATLAB software (rsh for remote execution).

On Windows systems, engOpen opens a COM channel to MATLAB. This starts the MATLAB software that was registered during installation. If you did not register during installation, on the command line you can enter the command:

matlab /regserver

See Introducing MATLAB COM Integration for additional details.

C Examples

UNIX Operating Systems

See engdemo.c in the matlabroot/extern/examples/eng_mat folder for sample programs that illustrate how to call the engine functions from a C program.

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

See engwindemo.c in the matlabroot/extern/examples/eng_mat folder for sample programs that illustrate how to call the engine functions from a C program for Windows systems.

Fortran Examples

See fengdemo.F in the matlabroot/extern/examples/eng_mat folder for sample programs that illustrate how to call the engine functions from a Fortran program.

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^[1] UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.

Engine (C)

engOpenSingleUse (C)

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