call and run an external program in matlab under windows

Does anybody have any idea about how to call and run an external program in matlab under windows? I want to call an external program in Matlab and this external program should read its input file in Matlab directory and then this external program should create the program's output file in Matlab directory.

Answer 1

[Rick Rosson]

You can call an executable program from the command line using the exclamation point or the system command:

   >> !hello

will cause Windows to execute the program hello.exe if there is such a file in the current directory or on the system path.

Alternatively:

   >> system('hello');

will do the same thing.

HTH.

[Cenk OZAN]

I have already made what you mentioned. It worked and it resulted in "enter input file name:... ". In other words, when I called the exe program, this program asks to insert the name of input file. But, I would like to see that when I called the exe program, this program must read input file and create output file by itself. All this procedure must be in MATLAB. If you have any solution to achieve this, I would be appreciated.

[Chirag Gupta]

This really depends on you external program. If your external program takes the input file name as an argument, you should be able to do:

!myExternalProgram inputFile.txt

However, if your external program does not take input arguments, you basically have to provide an inetrface where 2 external applications can talk together (non trivial)

[Ahmed Abed]

I have been in the same situation, you can try the following code: system('C:\folder\programme.exe C:\folder\file same.DAT'); this is just an example, you need to enter the path of your programme then the path of the file to be analised. this way worked fine with me, however, if the external programme needs a human interference after finishing the analysis, then you need to manually close the programme so you can complete your code, and this is exactly where I am stuck currently.

Answer 2

[Aleksander]

Would it be possible to launch an program from matlab code without keeping in the matlab program. my issue is that when i launch it this way matlab will wait for the external program to close before it continues.

[Kaustubha Govind]

Aleksander: If you're on Linux, I think adding an ampersand (&) to the end of your command should do what you need.

[Hunter Pruett]

I am having this same issue. I am trying to open and run a LabView file, which I can do successfully with code from the following website (code follows):

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/391119-how-can-you-call-a-labview-vi-from-matlab-script

e=actxserver('LabVIEW.Application');

vipath='C:\Users\NI\Desktop\test.vi';

vi=invoke(e,'GetVIReference',vipath);

!start C:\Users\NI\Desktop\test.vi

vi.Run;

The issue I have is that once the 'vi.Run' command has been executed, matlab waits until the LabView script is manually aborted before I can run any other code. I am controlling a servo from matlab and need the two to be running simultaneously. Anyone know if this is possible?

Answer 3

[Cameron]

Can anybody add some go-by code on how I would type commands, send files, etc in the externally opened program? I want to run hyperterminal externally with Matlab and send/receive text automatically on teh opened serial port.

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/13851-popen-read-and-write

You might need to modify the code to use _popen . See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/450865/what-is-the-equivalent-to-posix-popen-in-the-win32-api

Answer 4

[Veronica Escobar Ruiz]

Hi Cenk OZAN, did you find a solution for your problem? I have the same issue. I tried, without success, the solutions above and also the solution below.

[status1,cmdout1]=system('explorer /select ,"InputFile.txt"')

[status2,cmdout2]=system('ExeProgram.exe','-echo')

Hope someone can help us.

Answer 5

[Javier Valdes]

I think that the keyinject function https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/40001-keyinject could be useful to control that external application from MATLAB (if the external application has a named window).