Share your favorite snippet or utility

I am wondering what others use for those little short-cuts or niceties in MATLAB. I have in mind something you wrote or something somebody else wrote or an underused MW function.

Here are my two favorites.

This is a simple script I use. Here is the entire contents of CLC.m (yes, it is capitalized):

clear all,close all,clc

Very simple, but I use it all the time. Here is another one I use so often that I forget not every machine has it (though every machine should, IMO):

whats

Here is an underused MW function that I occasionally employ when working on someone else's machine. The usual response is, "Wait, what did you just do?"

home

What are some of yours?

[Image Analyst]

That's what the Mathworks folks recommend also - I learned that in one of their training classes long ago. They had us create a shortcut button on the toolbar called "cleanup" and that code was in there.

[Matt Fig]

Yeah, I used to have a shortcut button with that code but found that I would rather type than click. Personal preference, I guess.

[Albert Yam]

home

Just blew my mind.

[Sean de Wolski]

I call mine cll contents:

%Nuke it from Orbit!
close all force;
clear;
clc;

Note I don't do clear all (and try to never do it) since I like keeping the JIT happy.

I also tried to add a recursive dbquit into this but could not get it to actually work.

[Daniel Shub]

@Sean, I cannot get dbquit to be recursive, but adding the following makes it so calling it twice works

    if feature('IsDebugMode')
      disp('MATLAB was in debug mode, cll must be run a second time.')
      dbquit('all');
    end

[Robert Cumming]

Downloaded whats for the first time - very handy! :)

[Sean de Wolski]

@Matt, do you not keep the current directory panel open? I might have to give whats a try if it means I could close that panel.

[Matt Fig]

@Sean, I have only the command window and a minimized command history open to the left of that space. No docked anything. I am old-school. That is why I like whats so much, one simple command and I can do it all and I don't have to keep any more panels open all the time. Let me know "what" you think if you try it.

Answer 1

[José-Luis]

keep

Not really a snippet, but useful.

[Matt Fig]

>> help keep

keep not found.

What version are you using?

[José-Luis]

It's in the file exchange. Forgot about that:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/181

[Matt Fig]

Thanks, Jose! I edited your answer to put in the link for others. I'll check that one out! It may not be a snippet, but it is a utility, I think.

[Sean de Wolski]

I love keep

[Ilham Hardy]

What exactly the difference compared to

clearvars -except

??

[per isakson]

Better name and fewer keystrokes. keep has been around for a long time. I for one hadn't noticed "clearvars -except"

[Sean de Wolski]

keep also safe guards against deleting things when you have a typo.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

I have another few shortcut buttons on my toolbar to quickly go to often-used folders and show the file panel. For example one button that says "Go to demos folder" and in there is this code:

cd('D:\MATLAB\work\Demos');
filebrowser;

I keep all my demos that I post here in Answers (that are worthy of keeping) in that folder.

[Matt Fig]

I am already plotting how to use this. I have a folder where I keep all of the utility files I wrote. Sometimes I want to go there and add a new utility, which means I will have to go up to the Current Folder dropdown and find my folder. Now I will just type:

utilityfolder

which calls an M-file by the same name. Inside that M-file is the command:

CLC
cd('C:\Users\matt fig\Documents\MATLAB\MF_Tools')
whats

Thanks, IA!

[Daniel Shub]

At one point I tried to develop a way of using the history better. Basically I wanted functions like projectStart, projectEnd, and projectRestore that would handle the path and scrape the history for the last time I worked on the project. Never really figured out how it would work, but I still think it would be a cool utility.

[Image Analyst]

I don't have a "whats" function - I don't know what's that (no pun intended). I put in "filebrowser" because I used tabbed panels for workspace and the file listing to conserve space for code. So if I had been looking at the Workspace panel and just cd'ed then I wouldn't see my files, which was the whole point of going to that folder in the first place. So I do filebrowser and it sends the workspace panel to the back and brings the file listing panel to the forefront. Even if you aren't using tabbed panels, it can't hurt. If you had closed the panel for some reason, filebrowser will bring it back.

[Matt Fig]

IA, I gave a link in the OP to whats. Here is another:

whats

The function shows all M-files, MAT-files and figure files in the directory as hyperlinks. Clicking on a M-file name opens the file for editing. Clicking on a MAT-file name loads the file. Clicking on a figure file opens the figure.

Answer 3

[Daniel Shub]

I have three versions of your CLC that I have as shortcuts. They all came from here

The biggest hammer is

!matlab &
exit

This sometimes causes issues with the command window moving and files needing to be closed, but it really gets the job done. The second is a slightly smaller hammer that is based on the longer answer to the question. The third is the same as the second, except it doesn't screw with the path, current directory, or command window contents.

On my computer get(0, 'MonitorPosition') returns nonsense so I use

function MonitorPositions = getmonitorpositions()
  error(nargchk(0, 0, nargin, 'struct'));
  error(nargoutchk(0, 1, nargout, 'struct'));
  
  Monitors = ...
    java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment.getScreenDevices;
  MonitorPositions = zeros(length(Monitors), 4);
  for iMonitors = 1:length(Monitors)
    MonitorBounds = Monitors(iMonitors).getDefaultConfiguration.getBounds;
    MonitorPositions(iMonitors, :) = ...
      [MonitorBounds.getX, MonitorBounds.getY, ...
      MonitorBounds.getWidth, MonitorBounds.getHeight];
  end
end

I also like

    function [UserNameString, HostNameString, IpAddressString, MacAddressString] = getcomputer()
      error(nargchk(0, 0, nargin, 'struct'));
      error(nargoutchk(0, 4, nargout, 'struct'));

      UserNameString = char(java.lang.System.getProperty('user.name'));
      HostNameString = char(java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost.getHostName);
      Eth0Obj = java.net.NetworkInterface.getByName('eth0');
      MacAddressString = sprintf('%c%c-%c%c-%c%c-%c%c-%c%c-%c%c', dec2hex(mod(double(Eth0Obj.getHardwareAddress()), 256))');
      Temp = Eth0Obj.getInterfaceAddresses.size-1;
      IpAddressString = sprintf('%d.%d.%d.%d', mod(double(Eth0Obj.getInterfaceAddresses.get(Temp).getAddress.getAddress), 256));
    end

Answer 4

[Image Analyst]

Is there any way to make a shortcut button called something like "Format Code" which essentially does Control-A (to select all the text in the editor window) followed by Control-I (to fix up the indenting/alignment)? That's a nice set of utility commands that I use often.

[Sean de Wolski]

This should be it's own question because I want 4 points :)

smartIndentContents(matlab.desktop.editor.getActive)

Reference

[Image Analyst]

Thanks - it works!

Answer 5

[Albert Yam]

I have a few shortcut buttons. I have the clear all; clc separate from the close all though (and an fclose(all)). I have one specifically for looking at figures, which I use pretty often.

set(gcf, 'Position', [100 50 850 600])

But the most useful one I have is,

addpath (genpath (pwd))
disp('ADD path ''pwd''')

Another 2 I have are savez and diaryz, which just add a time stamp in the filename.

Answer 6

[Sean de Wolski]

• gohome

%Go home
cd('H:\Documents\MATLAB');

• fgcf

figure(gcf);

I used this through grad school since I would always lose my figures on the Mac. Since starting here, I discovered the very similar shg() and have made the transition.

• thesaurus

function thesaurus(word)
%SCd 07/19/2010
%Function to look up synonyms to input word.
%
%Uses www.thesaurus.com
%
%How to use:
%   thesaurus('useful')
%   thesaurus useful
%   thesaurus 'useful'
%
    web(['http://thesaurus.com/browse/' num2str(word)],'-browser');

end

• Sean (my vanity function)

function Sean(varargin)
%Sean is awesome
    fprintf('\b is awesome!\n');
end

• FEX:uiswitchrenderer

Is defaulted in my startup.m file

• vec

function v = vec(m)
%Helper function to turn a matrix of any size into a column vector using (:)
%    This function is meant to make one-line computations easy/fast when
%    subscripting already.  
%SCd 01/04/2011 (First function of 2011!)
%
%Updates: -05/24/2011: Used reshape instead of colon for speed.
%
%Usage: v = vec(m)
%
%Example:       
%    %Original way to one line the median of a slice of 3d matrix:
%    M = repmat(magic(200),[1 1 200]); %200x200x200 magic squares
%    Mmed = median(reshape(M(:,:,34),[],1)); %34th slice
%    
%    %Using the vec() function
%    Mmed = median(vec(M(:,:,34)));
%
%Input Arguments:
%   -m: matrix of any size
%
%Output Arguments:
%   -v: m(:)
%
%See Also: colon reshape
%

    v = reshape(m,numel(m),1);

end

• wpwd

function wpwd
%winopen(pwd)

    winopen(pwd)
end

[Matt Fig]

Thanks for sharing these, Sean!

[Daniel Shub]

Sean can you elaborate on "Updates: -05/24/2011: Used reshape instead of colon for speed." Have you thought about just using linear indexing instead of the reshape?

[Sean de Wolski]

@Daniel, so:

x((1:numel(x)).')

?

It's about 2000x slower on my system:

    t1 = 0;
    t2 = 0;
    for ii = 1:100
        tic
    v = reshape(m,numel(m),1);
        t1=t1+toc;
        tic
        v2 = m((1:numel(m))');
        t2 = t2+toc;
    end
    t2/t1

Reshape is blazingly fast since it just modifies some header information.

Answer 7

[Robert Cumming]

I second home - its very useful, the number of times I've had to go to a colleagues screen to help them debug and they have typed clc thinking they are helping me start - but of course that clears the error and any messages on the screen....

My favourite - its not a snippet but a code I would struggle to do wihtout since I work on multiple project is my SaveEditorHistory FEX.

Answer 8

[Srinivas]

I have a lazy shortcut to open the current folder I am working in

system(strcat('%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe',' "',pwd,'"'));

:)

[Matt Fig]

Also, this is lazier!

winopen(pwd)

[Sean de Wolski]

@Matt: only on Windows..!

[Jan]

Even "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe" will work under Windows only, Sean.

[Ashish Uthama]

winopen .
:)

Answer 9

[Shane]

I use uigetfile and uigetdir day in and day out, so when I am writing a new code I always add this code to the beginning of my function and I love it:

if isappdata(0,'previousDirectory')                                             
    startDirectory=getappdata(0,'previousDirectory');
    if isnumeric(startDirectory)
        startDirectory='C:\';
    end
else
 startDirectory='C:\';
end

[uigf1 uigf2]=uigetfile('*.bdf','SelectFile to Load',startDirectory); 

setappdata(0,'previousDirectory',uigf2);

Simply saves my directory location so that I dont start at C:\MyDocuments|MATLAB every time.

Answer 10

[Darik]

I'm a clumsy typist...

function hepl (x)
  help (x)
end

[Sean de Wolski]

Tyop corrections in R2012b!!

hepl fmincon

Undefined function 'hepl' for input arguments of type 'char'.

Did you mean:

>> help fmincon

I already highlighted this as my second favorite new feature:

doic fmincon

Answer 11

[DGM]

For some reason, I can never remember the name of the lookfor() function, and looking for the lookfor() function is a pain when you don't know what it's called.

So I just called it what I expected it to be called

apropos 'modified bessel'

besseli                        - Modified Bessel function of first kind
besselk                        - Modified Bessel function of second kind
besseli                        - Modified Bessel function of the first kind for symbolic expressions
besselk                        - Modified Bessel function of the second kind for symbolic expressions