how to stop a running script in Matlab [duplicate]

Question

I write a long running script in Matlab, e.g.

tic;
d = rand(5000);
[a,b,c] = svd(d);
toc;

It seems running forever. Becasue I press F5 in the editor window. So I cannot press C-Break to stop in the Matlab console.

I just want to know how to stop the script. I am current use Task Manager to kill Matlab, which is really silly.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Matlab help says this- For M-files that run a long time, or that call built-ins or MEX-files that run a long time, Ctrl+C does not always effectively stop execution. Typically, this happens on Microsoft Windows platforms rather than UNIX[1] platforms. If you experience this problem, you can help MATLAB break execution by including a drawnow, pause, or getframe function in your M-file, for example, within a large loop. Note that Ctrl+C might be less responsive if you started MATLAB with the -nodesktop option.

So I don't think any option exist. This happens with many matlab functions that are complex. Either we have to wait or don't use them!.

Answer 2

If ctrl+c doesn't respond right away because your script is too long/complex, hold it.

The break command doesn't run when matlab is executing some of its deeper scripts, and either it won't log a ctrl sequence in the buffer, or it clears the buffer just before or just after it completes those pieces of code. In either case, when matlab returns to execute more of your script, it will recognize that you are holding ctrl+c and terminate.

For longer running programs, I usually try to find a good place to provide a status update and I always accompany that with some measure of time using tic and toc. Depending on what I am doing, I might use run time, segment time, some kind of average, etc...

For really long running programs, I found this to be exceptionally useful http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/16649-send-text-message-to-cell-phone/content/send_text_message.m

but it looks like they have some newer functions for this too.