How to interpret info about release compatibility on the File Exchange?

Hello,

as I am still on Matlab R2018b, the info for files in the File Exchange about release compatibility is important to me, but I am not clear how to interpret it in cases such as this:

The MATLAB Release Compatibility entry says "Created with R2020a. Compatible with any release." (my emphasis)

But then under Requirements it says "MATLAB 2020a or later"

How then to interpret "Compatible with any release"?

Does this only mean any release later than the one used for creation, i.e. the second statement always has priority over the first? Or can I still expect backward compatibility?

Or may it vary from case to case?

Thanks for clarification.

Answer 1

[DGM]

It seems confusing because it is confusing. I usually don't put much weight in those tags. I just look at the version history.

Those bits of information are very often wrong or partially wrong. Those tags are required during the submission, but I'd be willing to bet that most are only specified out of obligation, and were never actually based on any compatibility analysis. Also consider that a lot of FEX submissions consist of multiple tools with varied version and toolbox dependencies. The available tagging doesn't really work well to describe those cases anyway.

If you want to know anything about compatibility, look to see if the author has included any of their own statements about compatibility. If it's a smaller project or if you're having specific issues with getting it to run in your version, you might consider trying to contact the author or seeing if the forum can help clarify what the potential issues might be.

[Stephen23]

Agreed. That about sums it up.

"Compatible with any release" is incorrect in most cases. More often it seems to mean "I didn't really pay much attention to the FEX options when uploading, nor did I really consider features of different releases when writing my script". Some do set those values correctly, but it takes practice to know who...

[xitram]

So, case by case investigation it is... (no big surprise here :-))

Thanks for the replies!