Why do I receive a LINK error when I use the MEX command in MATLAB 7.7 (R2008b)?

I have a 64-bit machine and a 64-bit compiler (Microsoft Visual C++ 2008, Professional Edition). The command

mex -setup

locates the compiler and allows me to successfully select this compiler. However, when I execute an example such as:

mex yprime.c

I receive the following error:

 LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'C:\DOCUME~1\WEBERJE\LOCAL' 

   C:\PROGRA~1\MATLAB\R2008B\BIN\MEX.PL: Error: Link of 'yprime.mexw64' failed. 

 !!!:  

 mex -v yprime.c

 failed!

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

In this particular case, the value of the environment variables TEMP and TMP on the user's machine was set to:

 TEMP=C:\DOCUME~1\WEBERJE\LOCAL SETTINGS\TEMP

 TMP=C:\DOCUME~1\WEBERJE\LOCAL SETTINGS\TEMP

There is a 'space' character between the words 'Local' and 'Settings' and thus the name 'Local Settings' was not returned in a shortened format by the machine to the compiler. So, the temporary directory where the linker was apparently looking for the required libraries was:

'C:\DOCUME~1\WEBERJE\LOCAL'

instead of:

'C:\DOCUME~1\WEBERJE\LOCAL SETTINGS'

This explains the error message that was generated when running the MEX command:

 LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'C:\DOCUME~1\WEBERJE\LOCAL'

To workaround this issue, change the environment variables TEMP and TMP to some directory that does not contain spaces. For example, set the TEMP and TMP environment variables to:

 C:\TEMP

NOTE: Ensure that such a directory exists and has write permissions for all users who are running the MEX command.