Dependency errors on import class statement when compiling with mcc

Similar to question http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/217960-error-when-using-deploytool-application-compiler.

However, I open a new question since the other question has been marked as answered, even if the problem persists.

Background

I am working on a large simulation software that contains many classes and files organized in folders and subfolders. The parent folders are included in the path options passed to the compiler with the -p option. I need to compile the software to be able to run it on a computation cluster without using Matlab licenses which are limited in my research institute.

Note: All the examples from PATH_TO/matlab/R2014a/extern/examples/compiler could be compiled successfully and passed the tests in my environment, using the compiler from version R2014a.

The code runs successfully in a desktop Matlab session.

Matlab version 2014a 8.3.0

Matlab MCR version 8.3

Linux 64 bits

gcc version 4.7.2

Problem

When compiling with command

mcc -o runSimulation -W main:runSimulation -T link:exe -d ./bin/runSimulation  -p bioinfo -p curvefit -p images -p optim -p signal -p stats -N -w enable:specified_file_mismatch -w enable:repeated_file -w enable:switch_ignored -w enable:missing_lib_sentinel -w enable:demo_license -R -nodisplay -R -singleCompThread -v ./bin/runSimulation.m -a LONG_LIST_OF_ALL_MATLAB_FILES

I always get dependencies error like:

Error using getSymbolNames (line 145) Import argument "SOME_CLASS_NAME" in MATLAB code 'SOME_MATLAB_FILE.m' cannot be found or cannot be imported.

Error in matlab.depfun.internal.MatlabInspector/analyzeSymbols (line 152) [F, S] = getSymbolNames(symbol.WhichResult);

Error in matlab.depfun.internal.Completion/findDependentFiles (line 1057) analyzeSymbols(inspector, symbol);

Error in matlab.depfun.internal.Completion/computeDependencies (line 234) findDependentFiles(obj);

Error in matlab.depfun.internal.Completion/computePartsList (line 1581) computeDependencies(obj);

Error in matlab.depfun.internal.Completion/requirements (line 1890) parts = computePartsList(obj, false);

Error in matlab.depfun.internal.requirements (line 191) [parts, resources.products, resources.platforms] = c.requirements();

Unexpected error while determining required deployable files. Compilation terminated.

What I tried to solve the problem

I tried to include ALL the subfolders (not only the parent folders) by passing them with the -p option or the -I option to the compiler.

I tried to change the order of the files passed the compiler. In this case I get the same error but referring to another import statement in a different file.

In a Matlab desktop session, by setting the correct paths with the addpath() function, I can import the mentionned class without any problem. Therefore, it seems to be a problem related to the Matlab compiler.

If I comment out the import statement and use the absolute package prefix for the external class the error disappears in the compiler. However, this would be a very bad solution since it implies manually correcting all the import statements, substituting class names with their prefix in all files.

Answer 1

[Marc Weber]

I resolved the problem with the help of Matlab technical staff. There was an error in the compiling command: I was passing all the matlab .m files to the compiler with the -a option. This created a conflict with the dependency routine. Quoting the technical staff:

"Generally speaking you should not need the -a option to add additional M-, P- or MEX-file to the application. The dependency analysis should automatically find all the M-files which your project requires. Only if you make use "eval" or "feval" or if you have defined string callbacks or you load a MAT-file containing MATLAB Objects you may need -a. Further -a can be used to add non-executable resources (MAT-files, images, etc.) to your project."

Removing all the -a options solved the problem and now the program compiles correctly.