MATLAB: How to configure the IDE to compile MATLAB Engine applications

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I would like to use my IDE (Visual Studio .Net 2003, etc.) to compile a MATLAB Engine application.

Best Answer

This change has been incorporated into the documentation in Release 2011a (R2011a). For previous releases, read below for any additional information:

To compile MATLAB Engine applications in a specific IDE, you need to modify your pre-processor include path, and tell the linker what libraries to link against and where to find those libraries.

To determine this, setup your compiler first using "mex -setup" and then compile one of the MATLAB Engine examples with the "-v" flag in order to see how MEX calls your compiler and linker. When it calls your compiler and linker, it will show all of the things mentioned above. You then need to put them into your IDE project settings.

For example, from inside MATLAB, the command:

mex -v -f d:\maTLAB7\bin\win32\mexopts\msvc71engmatopts.bat engdemo.c

produces many lines of output, but most importantly these two:

 "cl  -c -Zp8 -G5 -W3 -nologo /Foengdemo.obj 
 -ID:\MATLAB7\extern\include
 -ID:\MATLAB7\simulink\include 
 -O2 -DNDEBUG engdemo.c"
 "link "/out:engdemo.exe"  kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib
/LIBPATH:"D:\MATLAB7\extern\lib\win32\microsoft\msvc71" 
 libmx.lib libmat.lib libeng.lib /nologo  @9554_tmp.rsp "

From these, and for the installation of MATLAB on the computer where this example was performed (you may have installed MATLAB in a different directory or on a different drive), we can see that we need to add include paths of:

 D:\MATLAB7\extern\include 
 D:\MATLAB7\simulink\include

Also, we need to specify the following libraries for linking against:

 libmx.lib 
 libmat.lib (only if your code uses the MAT-file API)
 libeng.lib

And, we need to add to our linker library path:

 D:\MATLAB7\extern\lib\win32\microsoft\msvc71

Where these settings are depends on your IDE, and you may need to contact the maker of your IDE if you can not locate this in the documentation for your IDE or in the solutions database on their web site.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: What information does the “-v” flag give me about the MEX, MBUILD, or MCC command

The "-v" flag for MCC, MBUILD, and MEX causes these commands to be more verbose, and display more information about their progress --- for example, which C/C++/Fortran/Java compiler is being used, what options are being passed to that compiler, and what temporary files are being used.

For more information on which items are reported by which functions, see the relevant documentation:

doc mcc
doc mbuild
doc mex

In this example, we will use MCC -v, but the following information can be applied to any of the other "-v" commands. This example uses the MATLAB Compiler 2.1 (R12); other versions will report slightly different information.

mcc -v -m hello.m

The first section of output, shown below, is only seen in MCC (not MEX or MBUILD). This shows exactly what MATLAB files the MATLAB Compiler translated and their corresponding C or C++ files:

 Compiler version: 2.1
 Parsing file "D:\Applications\matlabr12\extern\examples\compiler\hello.m"
 (Referenced from: "Compiler Command Line").
 Generating file "hello.h".
 Generating file "hello.c".
 Generating file "hello_main.c".

The next output shows the exact command that MCC is executing to call MBUILD. If we had used "-x" instead of "-m" in our command, MCC would call MEX here (instead of MBUILD).

 Executing command: mbuild -O -v -output 'hello' 'hello.c' 'hello_main.c' -link exe.

The following is exactly what you would see if you ran the above MBUILD command. The first two lines of output here are especially important:

 -> Default options filename found in C:\WINNT\Profiles\jfouche\Application Data\MathWorks\MATLAB\R12 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------- 
 ->    Options file           = C:\WINNT\Profiles\jfouche\Application Data\MathWorks\MATLAB\R12\compopts.bat

These lines tell us the name and location of the options file that is being used to perform this compilation. In general it is not necessary to edit the options file, but if you needed to change any of the following settings, you could.

The following settings correspond exactly to what is in the options file listed above:

 ->    COMPILER               = cl 
 ->    Compiler flags: 
          COMPFLAGS           = -c -Zp8 -G5 -W3 -nologo 
          OPTIMFLAGS          = -O2 -DNDEBUG 
          DEBUGFLAGS          = -Zi -Fd"hello.pdb" 
          arguments           =  
          Name switch         = /Fo 
 ->    Pre-linking commands   =  
 ->    LINKER                 = link 
 ->    Link directives: 
          LINKFLAGS           = kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib /LIBPATH:"D:\Applications\matlabr12\extern\lib\win32\microsoft\msvc60" libmmfile.lib libmatlb.lib /nologo libmx.lib libmat.lib sgl.lib libmwsglm.lib 
          Name directive      = "/out:hello.exe" 
          File link directive =  
          Lib. link directive =  
          Rsp file indicator  = @ 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, the next few lines are the exact command-line statements passed into your C or C++ compiler. If you want to emulate the behavior of any of these scripts with an unsupported compiler, you can look at these lines and determine exactly what must be done in order to compile.

 --> "cl  -c -Zp8 -G5 -W3 -nologo /Fohello.obj -ID:\Applications\matlabr12\extern\include -ID:\Applications\matlabr12\simulink\include -O2 -DNDEBUG hello.c" 
 hello.c 
 --> "cl  -c -Zp8 -G5 -W3 -nologo /Fohello_main.obj -ID:\Applications\matlabr12\extern\include -ID:\Applications\matlabr12\simulink\include -O2 -DNDEBUG hello_main.c" 
 hello_main.c 
     Contents of 5496_tmp.rsp: 
   hello.obj  hello_main.obj 
 --> "link "/out:hello.exe" kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib /LIBPATH:"D:\Applications\matlabr12\extern\lib\win32\microsoft\msvc60" libmmfile.lib libmatlb.lib /nologo libmx.lib libmat.lib sgl.lib libmwsglm.lib  @5496_tmp.rsp " 
 --> "if exist _lib5496.def del _lib5496.def"

MATLAB: Do I receive an “LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _engOpen referenced in function” error when I compile the C++ code that calls the MATLAB engine API in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

This error occurs when you do not link the required static library, libeng.lib which is located in $MATLAB/extern/lib/win32/microsoft. (where $MATLAB is the MATLAB root directory on your machine, as returned by typing

matlabroot

at the MATLAB command prompt.)

In order to link the required static library, perform the following steps: (these steps may differ by Microsoft Visual Studio version)

1. Select the project in the tree and then select Project->Properties menu item to open the 'Property pages' window.

2. Here select the 'Linker' node that is under the 'Configuration Properties' node. Add the $MATLAB/extern/lib/win32/microsoft directory to the 'Additional Library Directories' field.

3. Select the 'Input' node under the 'Linker' node. Add the libeng.lib file in the 'Additional Dependencies' field.

4. Build the project.

Other modifications to your settings may also be required, for general instructions on configuring Microsoft Visual Studio, please see the related solution below.

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/96120-how-do-i-configure-my-ide-to-compile-matlab-engine-applications

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: What information does the “-v” flag give me about the MEX, MBUILD, or MCC command

MATLAB: Do I receive an “LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _engOpen referenced in function” error when I compile the C++ code that calls the MATLAB engine API in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

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