impact to existing code when I upgrade versions

Hello, I currently use MATLAB 2012a. Version 2014b is now available to me at work but I recall seeing several times in the help areas where certain code commands change or are no longer available in newer versions. I am wondering what will happen to all the programs and functions I wrote using 2012a if I upgrade to 2014b?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Some of them will work just fine. Some of them will require code changes. Usually the code changes are not large, but sometimes they can be tricky.

You can have multiple versions of MATLAB installed, so it is a good idea to try out your code in R2014b while still using the older version until you get everything worked out.

[John D'Errico]

Exactly. We cannot possibly know what you have that may be impacted. I have 25+ year old MATLAB codes that run perfectly, and always has, with no changes made over that time. I also have codes that have required updates.

Over the years, I will state that of the uncountably many functions I have written, few changes have been needed with any one release. The times when changes were important was when significant new features were added to the language. For example, when sparse matrices were introduced, but that was MANY years ago. Even so, that is completely new capability, and the old code would still have run with no problems.

So look at the release notes. (They are online.) They will tell you what functions were impacted.