COMPILING AND DEPLOYING YOUR MATLAB APPLICATION ON WINDOWS
 
MATLAB is an interpreted language; that is, instead of using a
compiler to run the program you use an interpreter. An interpreter
translates the program into machine code on-the-fly and runs it at the
same time (doing so one statement at a time). Interpreted programs
stay in the source code they were programmed in, as opposed to
compiled programs which are usually read from a binary
file. Interpreted languages are usually slower but it makes things
convenient when they're ready to be tested. MATLAB allows programs to
be compiled as C code, and the following will explain how.
 
 
 Note: This has been tested on
version 7.0.1 and later.
 
 Here are step-by-step instructions on how
to compile and deploy your application:
 
 0) You'll only need to run
this once to setup the compiler. Type this into MATLAB, and select a C
compiler:
 
 mbuild -setup
 
 1) For me, all of my *.m files were in
one directory. I had a 'top' file, let's call it topfile.m, that I ran
to start my application. To compile this file type this into MATLAB:


 mcc -m topfile.m
 
 This gives you 3 or 4 files, among them being
topfile.exe and topfile.ctf. These two files will need to be deployed
when you're shipping off your final project.
 
 2) Now that you have
the executable, you'll need a way to give the end-user the necessary
library files. Things have changed in MATLAB. Now you have to package
an extra executable so the end-user can install something called the
MATLAB Component Runtime application. This is where I found the
installer:
 
 $MATLAB\toolbox\compiler\deploy\win32
 
 3) To ship off
your application, you'll need to zip up topfile.ctf, topfile.exe and
MCRInstaller.exe. Place these files on the end-user's computer and run
the MCRInstaller.exe (this will change library paths, so you'll have
to run the installer from an account with the expected permissions).


 Everything should now be setup. You should be able to run
topfile.exe issues.