Sending input() from Python API

I am trying to allow for a user to interact with MATLAB scripts from the python console using the matlab engine API for python.

I am currently able to display the output of a script with the following code.

main.py

import matlab.engine
eng = matlab.engine.start_matlab()
eng.testInput(nargout=0)

testInput.m

prompt("Enter a number: ")

Whenever this runs, the console is frozen with the text

"Enter a number: " and I am unable to interact with the terminal.

I would expect that if the APi uses the python sys.stdout for displaying the output from the scripts that it would also allow for you to use the sys.stdin from the terminal.

Answer 1

[Jasmine Dai]

Based on the documentation below:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/user-input-not-supported.html

It seems that user input is not supported by the engine API. I would suggest you provide any user input that you need on the python side and feed them into the engine calls.

[sepand soltani]

Can't this confusion be prevented by giving an error to the user when an input functions(input(),keyboard(),..) is called from an engine?

Answer 2

[Sean de Wolski]

This works if you start the MATLAB engine with the desktop:

import matlab.engine

eng = matlab.engine.start_matlab('-desktop')
s = eng.input("Hello World: ", "s")
print(s)
eng.quit()