Set Up File Management System

Step 7 of 7 in Basic Modeling Workflow

As a model grows, managing referenced files and dependencies becomes more complicated. To reduce the complexity of managing large models, you can use projects. Projects in Simulink® help to organize large model hierarchies by finding required files, managing and sharing files and settings, and interacting with source control.

Open the project named BasicModelingProject, which contains these files:

• Subsystem file BasicModelingPlant.slx

• Model file BasicModelingHierarchy.slx

• Model file BasicModelingController.slx

• Model file BasicModelingOperatorVariant.slx

• Script BasicModelingDataPlant.m

• Script BasicModelingDataController.m

• Script BasicModelingVariantChoice.m

• Function BasicModelingBusObjects.m

To group the files by type in a project, add the Type column by right-clicking a column header and selecting Type. Then, click the Type column header.

The MATLAB® scripts, function, and top model are configured to Run at Startup.

The top model in the model hierarchy has a project shortcut. To reopen the top model if you close it, on the Project Shortcuts tab, click Open Top Model.

Using this project, you can explore these project capabilities:

• Automate tasks

• Create shortcuts for common actions

• Analyze file dependencies

• Analyze the impact of changing files

• Compare model files

In the Views pane of the project, select Dependency Analyzer. To run a dependency analysis on all the files in the project, click Analyze.

A dependency graph opens. To update the graph, in the Dependency Analyzer toolstrip, click Analyze.

In the dependency graph, click a dependency arrow to display its properties, including the dependency type, in the Properties pane. In this example, the scripts and functions are run by callbacks. Since these files run at startup in the project, the callbacks are redundant and can be removed.

The dependency graph also shows the two-level model hierarchy, in which the top model depends on a referenced subsystem and referenced models.