External Interfaces/API

Exchanging Data Files Between Platforms

You may want to work with MATLAB implementations on several different computer systems, or need to transmit MATLAB applications to users on other systems. MATLAB applications consist of M-files containing functions and scripts, and MAT-files containing binary data.

Both types of files can be transported directly between machines: M-files because they are platform independent and MAT-files because they contain a machine signature in the file header. MATLAB checks the signature when it loads a file and, if a signature indicates that a file is foreign, performs the necessary conversion.

Using MATLAB across several different machine architectures requires a facility for exchanging both binary and ASCII data between the various machines. Examples of this type of facility include FTP, NFS, Kermit, and other communication programs. When using these programs, be careful to transmit binary MAT-files in binary file mode and ASCII M-files in ASCII file mode. Failure to set these modes correctly corrupts the data.

Exporting Data from MATLAB

Reading and Writing MAT-Files