MATLAB®

Additional Automation Server Information

Creating the Server Manually

An Automation server is created automatically by the Microsoft^® Windows^® operating system when a controller application first establishes a server connection. Alternatively, you may choose to create the server manually, prior to starting any of the client processes.

To manually create a MATLAB^® server, use the /Automation switch in the MATLAB startup command. You can do this from the DOS command line by typing:

matlab /Automation

Alternatively, you can add this switch every time you run MATLAB, as follows:

1. Right-click the MATLAB shortcut icon

   

   and select Properties from the context menu. The Properties dialog box for matlab.exe opens to the Shortcut tab.

2. In the Target field, add /Automation to the end of the target path for matlab.exe. Be sure to include a space between the file name and the symbol /. For example:

   "C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2006a\bin\win32\MATLAB.exe /Automation"

Note    When the operating system automatically creates a MATLAB server, it too uses the /Automation switch. In this way, MATLAB servers are differentiated from other MATLAB sessions. This protects controllers from interfering with any interactive MATLAB sessions that may be running.

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Specifying a Shared or Dedicated Server

You can start the MATLAB Automation server in one of two modes – shared or dedicated. A dedicated server is dedicated to a single client; a shared server is shared by multiple clients. The mode is determined by the programmatic identifier (ProgID) used by the client to start MATLAB.

Starting a Shared Server

The ProgID, matlab.application, specifies the default mode, which is shared. You can also use the version-specific ProgID, matlab.application.N.M, where N is the major version and M is the minor version of your MATLAB. For example, use N = 7 and M = 4 for MATLAB version 7.4.

Once MATLAB is started as a shared server, all clients that request a connection to MATLAB using the shared server ProgID connect to the already running instance of MATLAB. In other words, there is never more than one instance of a shared server running, since it is shared by all clients that use the shared server ProgID.

Starting a Dedicated Server

To specify a dedicated server, use the ProgID, matlab.application.single, (or the version-specific ProgID, matlab.application.single.N.M).

Each client that requests a connection to MATLAB using a dedicated ProgID creates a separate instance of MATLAB; it also requests the server not be shared with any other client. Therefore, there can be several instances of a dedicated server running simultaneously, since the dedicated server is not shared by multiple clients.

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Using Date Data Type

When you need to pass a VT_DATE type input to a Visual Basic^® program or an ActiveX^® control method, you can use the MATLAB class COM.date. For example:

d = COM.date(2005,12,21,15,30,05);
get(d)
     Value: 7.3267e+005
    String: '12/21/2005 3:30:05 PM'

You can use now to set the Value property to a date number:

d.Value = now;

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Using MATLAB^® Application as a DCOM Server

Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) is a protocol that allows COM connections to be established over a network. If you are using a version of the Windows operating system that supports DCOM and a controller that supports DCOM, you can use the controller to start a MATLAB server on a remote machine.

To do this, DCOM must be configured properly, and MATLAB must be installed on each machine that is used as a client or server. (Even though the client machine may not be running MATLAB in such a configuration, the client machine must have a MATLAB installation because certain MATLAB components are required to establish the remote connection.) Consult the DCOM documentation for how to configure DCOM for your environment.

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MATLAB® Automation Server Functions and Properties

Examples of a MATLAB® Automation Server