run Matlab in batch mode

Question

It seems to me that there are two ways to run Matlab in batch mode:

the first one:

unset DISPLAY  
matlab > matlab.out 2>&1 << EOF  
plot(1:10)  
print file  
exit  
EOF

The second one uses option "-r MATLAB_command":

matlab -nojvm -nosplash -r MyCommand   

Are these two equivalent?

What does "<< EOF" and the last "EOF" mean in the first method?

Thanks and regards!

Answer 1

The first method simply redirects the standard output > matlab.out and the standard error 2>&1 to the file matlab.out.

Then it uses the heredoc way of passing input to MATLAB (this is not specific to MATLAB, it is a method of passing multiple lines as input to command line programs in general).

The syntax is << followed by an unique identifier, then your text, finally the unique id to finish. You can try this on the shell:

cat << END
some
text
multiple lines
END

The second method of using the -r option starts MATLAB and execute the statement passed immediately. It could be some commands or the name of a script or function found on the path. It is equivalent to doing something like:

python -c "print 'hello world'"

Refer to this page for a list of the other start options.