MATLAB: Am I unable to save the MATLAB path using MATLAB 7.9 (R2009b)

addpathMATLABrmpath

I am not an administrator on this machine. Therefore, I am unable to save the path in 'pathdef.m' in its default location (as I do not have write privileges in the installation folders).

Thus, I have saved pathdef.m in another folder which is on my path. Now, I add more directories to the MATLAB path and save it. I can see that pathdef.m is updated and it contains the new paths. However, when I quit MATLAB and restart it, MATLAB restores to the default MATLAB path and it does not recognize the folders that I recently added. I have to add these folders to the path again.

Best Answer

This occurs because MATLAB is using your old pathdef.m file to load the path at startup.

To resolve this issue, place the new pathdef.m in your startup folder. You can set your startup folder using USERPATH. You can read more about this in the documentation for SAVEPATH:

   doc savepath

Alternatively, use the ADDPATH command in a startup.m file (located in the startup directory or on your MATLAB path) to add the directories to your path. MATLAB will always execute the startup.m file at startup.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Am I unable to use some of the installed products after upgrading to a newer MATLAB version

The warning message indicates there is a path definition problem. This could be caused by saving the MATLAB path definition file (PATHDEF.M) to the MATLAB startup folder.

The ability to share a single PATHDEF.M for multiple MATLAB releases is not available in MATLAB 7.14 (R2012a).

When you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 with User Account Control (UAC) enabled, MATLAB may have been unable to save the MATLAB path definition file (PATHDEF.M) to the folder where MATLAB is installed. If this file was saved to the startup folder, this could cause this problem when upgrading MATLAB.

If you are migrating to the newer MATLAB and have removed or will remove the older version, you can restore the MATLAB path to the default path. You can use the Path Tool for this:

pathtool

File > Set Path...

Then press the "Default" button. You can now close the tool and save the new path settings, such that on restart MATLAB will have the default path. Alternatively you could first verify if everything works as expected or add any previously added custom paths. You can use the Path Tool to save a customized version of this path or use the

savepath

command to do the same.

If you would like to use multiple MATLAB versions side by side, you should remove the PATHDEF.M from the shared startup folder. Then there are multiple options you can follow:

1. Whenever you would like to change the MATLAB path, start MATLAB with Administrator privileges and save the MATLAB path.

2. Use a STARTUP.M file in the MATLAB startup folder to add custom paths with the ADDPATH function. The advantage of this solution is that when you change the STARTUP.M to add custom paths, these paths are added for all MATLAB releases that share the same startup folder.

MATLAB: How to permanently set the search path

Have you tried doing Set Path on the tool ribbon (Home tab) and then selecting a folder and saving it? Otherwise, you can create a startup.m file and put it there.

>> edit startup.m

Then add a line

addpath(genpath('D:/Matlab/Work/Utilities'));

using whatever folder you want. You can also cd to a desired starting folder in the startup.m if you want. Just add the line

cd('d:/MATLAB/work/MyFirstProject');

using whatever folder you want to start in. I'm pretty sure the startup.m file will be in a folder that you have read and write permission for. If not, let us know what userpath is

>> userpath

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Am I unable to use some of the installed products after upgrading to a newer MATLAB version

MATLAB: How to permanently set the search path

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