Is there a way to suppress command outputs to command window?

Hello guys, I know I can use ; in the end of the commands to prevent them from echoing to the command windows. But now, my situation is that I have a very long code, dispersed in so many m files.

Several command in them, on purpose, for sake of reporting the status, (and useful for debugging( do not have semicolons. Now I am running the code in a loop, and I think having all these outputs slows the process.

How can I suppress all command outputs, without manually going through the long code and putting a semicolon on each line?

Bonus question: There are some disp functions as well that report to the command line. can I also suppress them?

Thanks

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

evalc('yourmainfile');

[Ehsan na]

Thanks for the comment. I tried this function, but it does not solve my issue. Maybe because my main file is a GUI form?! Still the command outputs were showing up in the command window.

[Sean de Wolski]

The callbacks will be evaluated from elsewhere, so yes, this won't work for an app.

What I would recommend doing is taking an hour or two and going through and adding the following around your disp statements:

if isverbose
  disp whatever
end

Then you can write a function "isverbose". If it returns 1, the disp is evaluated other wise it returns zero and it isn't. This will give you the flexibility you desire in an elegant way.

[Ehsan na]

Thanks Sean.

[Sven]

Thanks a lot! Worked for me for suppressing command line outputs of a model dependency function:

evalc('[files, ~, ~, ~] = dependencies.fileDependencyAnalysis(ModelName, ''manifestfile'')');

Answer 2

[Jos (10584)]

You can create a function in the current directory or top directory of the path called disp.m and put the following single line of code in there:

function thisdoesnothing (varargin)

If you need to use DISP again, just change the name of the m-file to something else (e.g. thisdoesnothing.m)

[Ehsan na]

Thanks a very good solution to suppress the DISP function outputs!

Is it possible that instead of overloading disp function by creating another m-file named disp.m, I create a function named disp inside my main file (main_prog.m), but it gets a GLOBAL scope so that it also will be accessible from subcode_1.m in the run time? (subcode_1.m is called from within the main_prog.m in the run time)

Answer 3

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

fid1 = fopen('your_file.m');
fid2=fopen('new_file.m','w')
res={};
while ~feof(fid)
line1 =[fgetl(fid) ';'];
res{end+1,1}=line1
fprintf(fid2,'%s \r\n',line1)
end
fclose(fid1);
fclose(fid2);

[Ehsan na]

I am hoping to find a solution that I can activate/deactivate this suppression of outputs anytime I want, without completely modifying the code each time.

If I am running the code for debugging, and development I will let the outputs show up, but when running the code for results, I will disable them.

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

I didn't change your file, just created another one, you can choose to run the first or second one

[Ehsan na]

I see. Thanks.

Answer 4

[Steven Lord]

If you're using a sufficiently recent release of MATLAB, create a codeIssues object for the file then call fix with the object and the CheckID of the issues you want to fix as inputs.

dbtype myfun129872.m % Note line 2 is missing its semicolon

1     function y = myfun129872(x)
2     y = x.^2

issues = codeIssues('myfun129872.m')

issues = 
  codeIssues with properties:

                         Date: 03-May-2025 23:51:30
                      Release: "R2024b"
                        Files: "/users/mss.system.7c99x/myfun129872.m"
    CodeAnalyzerConfiguration: "active"
                       Issues: [1x10 table]
             SuppressedIssues: [0x11 table]


    Issues table preview

       Location        Severity    Fixability                                   Description                                   CheckID    LineStart    LineEnd    ColumnStart    ColumnEnd                 FullFilename              
    _______________    ________    __________    _________________________________________________________________________    _______    _________    _______    ___________    _________    _______________________________________

    "myfun129872.m"      info         auto       "Add a semicolon after the statement to hide the output (in a function)."     NOPRT         2           2            3             3        "/users/mss.system.7c99x/myfun129872.m"

% fix(issues, "NOPRT")

I didn't make the fix call executable in Answers because I wanted to show you the file with the code issue present and didn't want to have to keep replacing the file each time I ran the code. I did run it in a local session of MATLAB, however, and confirmed it added the semicolon.

Answer 5

[Henric Rydén]

echo off

[Ehsan na]

echo offf does not affect this scenario. already checked. (My Matlab version: 2012b)

[Henric Rydén]

Ok, sorry

Answer 6

[Matt J]

As a partial solution, you can use favoriteForceSemicolons.m from this File Exchange download,

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/181000-customized-text-modification-buttons-for-the-matlab-editor

It is easiest if you install it as a Quick Access button, as recommended in the Desciption section of the submission.

With this, you can open a file in the Matlab Editor and do Select All (Ctrl-A) in a given file. When you apply favoriteForceSemicolons(), it will add semicolons to all relevant lines of code. I don't know if there is a way to automate this process across multiple files, however.