Tuning and Managing M-Files :: (MATLAB Release Notes)

MATLAB Release Notes

Tuning and Managing M-Files

If you are using the Help browser, watch the new Directory Reports video demo for an overview of the major functionality.

See the complete Tuning and Managing M-Files documentation online. Use these tools to fine tune and manage your M-files, and to prepare them for distribution to other users.

Visual Directory Tool in the Current Directory Browser

The Visual Directory view of the Current Directory provides useful information about the M-files in a directory. It can help you polish M-files before providing them to others to use.

Click the Show Visual Directory button on the Current Directory browser toolbar. The view changes--see the following figure for an example. To return to the Classic view of the Current Directory browser, click the button again. For more information, see Visual Directory in Current Directory Browser in the online documentation.

Directory Reports in the Current Directory Browser

In the Current Directory browser, select View -> Directory Reports and select the type of report to run. The report appears as an HTML document in the MATLAB Web browser. A summary of the reports follows. For more information, see Directory Reports in Current Directory Browser in the online documentation.

M-Lint Code Check Report. The M-Lint report displays potential errors and problems, as well as opportunities for improvement in your code. For example, one common message is that a variable is defined but never used. You can also produce an M-Lint report for specified files using the mlint function, or run the M-Lint report from the Editor/Debugger or Profiler.

TODO/FIXME Report. The TODO/FIXME report shows M-files that contain text strings you included as notes to yourself, such as TODO.

Help Report. The Help report presents a summary view of the help component of your M-files. Use this information to help you identify files of interest or to help you identify files that lack help information.

Contents Report. The Contents report displays information about the integrity of the Contents.m file for the directory. A Contents.m file is a file you create that provides a brief description for relevant M-files in the directory. When you type help followed by the directory name, such as help mydemos, MATLAB displays the information in the Contents.m file. Use the Contents report to help you clean up and maintain your Contents.m file. If there is no Contents.m file, use the Contents report to create one.

Dependency Report. The Dependency report shows all M-files called by each M-file, or in other words, shows all children of each M-file. Use this report to determine all files you need to provide to someone who wants to run an M-file.

File Comparison Report. The File Comparison report identifies the differences between two files in the current directory. For example, you can easily compare an autosaved version of a file to the latest version of the file.

Coverage Report. Run the Coverage report after you run the Profile report to identify what percentage of the file was executed when it was profiled.

Profiler for Measuring Performance

Access the Profiler from the Desktop menu or the Editor/Debugger Tools menu.
In the Profiler summary report, click a column name to sort the report by that column.
In the Profiler detail report, specify options to show busy lines (lines where the most time was spent) and to show the file listing (the M-file code). Other options allow you to run the M-Lint Code Check report, which provides messages for improving the file, and the Coverage report, which indicates how much of the file was exercised during profiling. For more information about these reports, see Directory Reports in Current Directory Browser in the online documentation. After selecting an option in the detail report, click Refresh to update the report. The performance acceleration information in the detail report has been removed.
The profile report previously supported in MATLAB is no longer available. This was the report you generated by running profile report or profreport. There is a new function, profsave that replaces profreport. The profsave function saves a static version of the HTML profile report.

Editing and Debugging M-Files Publishing Results