Calling an external software from MATLAB

Hi All,

I am using Linux-mint 18. I want to call external software from MATLAB. Here is what I have done so far but it is not working.

Let's say the name of my software is "my_software". It is located in "/home/hs/my_software" folder. If I want to open it using the terminal, I do "/home/hs/my_software/bin/my_software" and I can open using terminal. I have also created alias for it in .bashrc file. So if I just type in terminal "my_software", it opens the software.

However when I do in MATLAB "system('my_software')" it gives me the error "/bin/bash: my_software:command not found". If I do "system('/home/hs/my_software/bin/my_software')" then it works i.e. it open the software successfully using MATLAB.

May I ask that what I have to do so that my alias also works in MATLAB like in terminal i.e. if I do "system('my_software')" it successfully opens?

Answer 1

[Ammar Dodin]

I think this is what you're looking for. https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/94199-can-i-use-aliases-when-using-the-and-system-commands-from-within-matlab%20

[Harsh Shukla]

Thank you. Yes indeed that was something I was looking for. For anyone who is trying to do the same...

• Install tcsh if it is not installed already. (Synaptic package manager has it)
• create ~/.cshrc file and put alias there e.g. "alias my_software /home/hs/my_software/bin/my_software". Do not put quotes in .cshrc file by the way.
• edit ~/.bashrc file and add "export MATLAB_SHELL=/bin/tcsh". Again without quotes
• Close all the terminals and restart matlab. It should work now.