Error when compiling Fortran MEX file with mxCreateStructMatrix

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I'm trying to create a struct as an output of a MEX file, but when I try to compile the file, I get errors about the function mxCreateStructMatrix not being defined. The exact error is:
Error: Function mxcreatestructmatrix730at (1) has no IMPLICIT type; did you mean ‘mxcreatedoublematrix730’?
It would seem that the library that defines mxCreateStructMatrix isn't being linked, but I don't know which library is supposed to define the function. My library string from
mex -v filename.F90
is
LINKLIBS : -Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/local/MATLAB/R2019b/bin/glnxa64 -L"/usr/local/MATLAB/R2019b/bin/glnxa64" -lmx -lmex -lmat -lm -L"/usr/lib64" -lgfortran
My guess is that the library is supposed to be defined by "-lmx," but ld is able to find the library without a problem. What could cause the function not to have a type defined?

Accepted Answer

Josh G.
Josh G. on 15 May 2020
After some more testing I figured out what the problem was. The precompilation was failing because each function has to be defined with a type of "mwPointer," so adding the line
mwPointer :: mxCreateStructMatrix
to my MEX file fixed the problem.
  8 Comments
James Tursa
James Tursa on 29 May 2020
Edited: James Tursa on 29 May 2020
OK. So maybe there is a different interface for the entry point for Fortran. I would not have expected that, and frankly don't know why they would even do that in the first place. Regardless, I still think adding the -fdefault-integer-8 option behind the user's back is inherently a bad idea since it might screw up the user's code. It would have been better to simply specify it as INTEGER*8 or mwPointer in the doc to make the intent explicit. I don't even know if there are any other routines in the API that use the default integer besides mexFunction. I feel the same way about this that I do about the silly /fixed option that they include in their mex build files that screw up the user trying to use free format code. I complained about this several years ago but it is still there. You should delete it if you haven't already.
Thanks for the post ... I learned something from this discussion.
I wonder what would happen if you built a mex function that linked some Fortran object code containing an exported MEXFUNCTION with some C object code containing an exported mexFunction ... which one would get called? Would it depend on the link order? Or is there a preferred order that it searches for the entry point? I'm not asking you to do this ... I am just wondering what would happen. I haven't had access to a Fortran compiler for quite some time so can't check this myself.
Josh G.
Josh G. on 1 Jun 2020
Yes, MathWorks does several things wrong with their Fortran MEX implementation, but it's been said elsewhere in MATLAB Answers that Fortran is the red-headed stepchild of the MEX languages.
Using the non-standard integer*4 and integer*8 instead of the standard KIND specification is wrong, using -fdefault-integer-8 is wrong, using /fixed and supplying examples as FORTRAN 77 source is wrong, and supporting GCC for C and C++ MEX but not GFortran for Fortran MEX on Mac and Windows is wrong.
Fortunately I don't think they include a GFortran equivalent of /fixed on Linux, but I've had to deal with removing it on Windows machines and it's annoying.
As one example of how their non-standard integer/real notation could cause problems, I write MEX files that interface with native Fortran programs using the standard KIND specification. It's not inconceivable that the MEX file could be compiled on a system where (taking real64 from the ISO_FORTRAN_ENV module) real(real64) and real*8 aren't the same thing.

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