How to get the return value of a compiled m-function?

Hi everyone,

I am working with genetic algorithms in MATLAB. In my fitness function I call another MATLAB function called 'model', that takes several seconds to execute (about 45s).

In order to speed-up things a little bit I've compiled the model

mcc -N -m model

Of course I've adapted the model.m function in order to deal with string parameters.

Then, in order to pass a vector to the function, I prepare a command string like this:

cmd = 'model [1 2 3 4]';

and call

eval(cmd)

So far so good. The problem is: how to get the return value of the function (that is a matrix)? I can see the numerical output in the 'ans' variable after calling eval, so the output is produced correctly.

I've tried with this syntax:

output = eval(cmd)

but this generates a syntax error, given that the resulting command is something like:

output = model [1 2 3 4]

given that after eval(cmd) I have the correct numerical value in 'ans', I've found this workaround:

eval(cmd) output = ans;

but I think this is not very elegant, nor safe. Moreover, my application is parallelized, so I don't feel very comfortable using 'ans' in this way (am I right?).

If you share my doubts about this solution, could you please suggest me a better way to get the output value of a compiled m-function being called inside matlab?

Thank you very much

Best regards

[Walter Roberson]

mcc does not speed up functions, or at least not by very much.