MATIO - MATLAB MAT file I/O library
Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Contact
1.2 Acknowledgements
1.3 Contributing
1.4 Questions and Reporting Bugs
2.0 Building
2.1 Dependencies
2.1.1 zlib
2.1.2 HDF5
2.2 Building matio
2.2.1 Quick Build Guide
2.2.2 Configure Options
2.2.3 Visual Studio
2.2.4 Testsuite
2.3 Platforms
3.0 License
1.0 Introduction
Matio is an open-source C library for reading and writing binary MATLAB MAT
files.
This library is designed for use by programs/libraries that do not have
access or do not want to rely on MATLAB's shared libraries.
1.1 Contact
You can contact Christopher Hulbert through email at
chulbe2lsu@users.sourceforge.net or Thomas Beutlich through email at
t-beu@users.sourceforge.net.
1.2 Acknowledgements
The following people/organizations have helped in the development of
matio through patches, bug reports, and/or testing:
* Greg Sjaardema (https://github.com/gsjaardema)
* Jacco van Beek (https://sourceforge.net/u/jabe)
* John Filo (https://github.com/jfilo)
* Modelica Association (https://modelica.org/association)
* Nelson (https://nelson-numerical-software.github.io/nelson-website/)
* Nils Jannasch (https://github.com/NJannasch)
* OpenMEEG ((http://openmeeg.github.io/)
* Scilab (http://www.scilab.org/)
* Sébastien Villemot (https://github.com/svillemot)
* SGI in support of Interactive Supercomputing, Inc.
* Steven Leibman <sleibman@alum.mit.edu>
1.3 Contributing
If you are interested in collaborations, contact us via email (see
Section 1.1).
1.4 Questions and Reporting Bugs
Questions can be asked using the forums on the sourceforge site hosting
matio (https://sourceforge.net/p/matio/discussion).
Bugs, enhancements, etc. should be submitted using one of the trackers
on the sourceforge page (https://sourceforge.net/p/matio/_list/tickets).
2.0 Building
This section describes how to build matio. Section 2.1 describes the
dependencies, Section 2.2 how to build/test matio, and Section 2.3
documents the platforms matio has been tested on.
2.1 Dependencies
Matio has two optional dependencies. These are not required for the
software to work, but without them some files may be unreadable. Zlib
is required to read/write level 5 MAT files that use compression. HDF5
is required to work with newer MAT files that use the HDF5-format
files.
2.1.1 zlib
To support compressed MAT files, zlib 1.2.3 or greater is required.
The zlib software can be downloaded from http://zlib.net.
2.1.2 HDF5
Support for MAT file version 7.3 requires the HDF5 library. This
library can be downloaded from https://www.hdfgroup.org/. Matio
requires HDF5 version 1.8.x or greater. Neither deprecated HDF5
1.6.x API functions nor HDF5 higher-level functions are called.
* Building matio with HDF5 1.8.x requires configuration of HDF5
with default API version 1.8 (i.e.
'--with-default-api-version=v18').
* Building matio with HDF5 1.10.x requires configuration of HDF5
with either default API version 1.10 (i.e.
'--with-default-api-version=v110') or with deprecated API
version 1.8 (i.e. '--with-default-api-version=v18').
For Windows, the pre-compiled binaries can be used which also
include a DLL of zlib to satisfy the zlib dependency.
2.2 Building matio
2.2.1 Quick Build Guide
The primary method for building the software is using 'configure'
followed by 'make'. After building, the testsuite can be executed to
test the software using 'make check'. The software can be installed
using 'make install'. For example,
$ tar zxf matio-X.Y.Z.tar.gz
$ cd matio-X.Y.Z
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make check
$ make install
If any of the tests in the testsuite fail, you should report the failure
using the tracker (see Section 1.4). You should attach the generated
testsuite.log file to the bug report.
2.2.2 Configure Options
The configure script used to build the software takes a number of
options. This section describes the key options.
* '--enable-mat73=yes'
This flag en/disables the support for version 7.3 MAT files.
The option only makes sense if built with HDF5 as support for
version 7.3 files. It will be disabled if HDF5 is not
available.
* '--enable-extended-sparse=yes'
Enable extended sparse matrix data types not supported in
MATLAB. MATLAB only supports double-precision sparse data.
With this flag, matio will read sparse data with other types
(i.e. single-precision and integer types).
* '--with-matlab=DIR'
This option specifies the directory (DIR) with the 'matlab'
program. With this option, the testsuite will check that the
MAT files written by matio can be read into MATLAB. Without
this, the test will only check that matio can read the file
written and if successful the test will be skipped. If matio
can not read the file, the test will fail.
* '--with-zlib=DIR'
This option specifies the prefix where zlib is installed
(see Section 2.1.1 for information about zlib).
* '--with-hdf5=DIR'
This option specifies the prefix where the HDF5 software is
installed (see Section 2.1.2 for information about HDF5).
* '--with-default-file-ver=version'
This option sets the default MAT file version (4,5,7.3) that
will be used when writing. The default file version is used
by the Mat_Create macro and the Mat_CreateVer function when
MAT_FT_DEFAULT is used for the version argument.
* '--with-libdir-suffix=suffix'
This option specifies a suffix to apply to library
directories when installing and looking for dependent
libraries (i.e. HDF5 and zlib). For example, some multi-arch
Linux distributions install 64-bit libraries into lib64 and
32-bit libraries into lib.
2.2.3 Visual Studio
Visual Studio solutions are provided as visual_studio/matio_vs2008.sln
for VS2008 and as visual_studio/matio.sln for VS2010 (and newer).
The Debug and Release configurations of both solutions are set up to
build a DLL of the matio library (libmatio.dll) and the matdump tool
and assume HDF5 is available in the directory specified by the
HDF5_DIR environment variable. It is assumed that the shared libraries
of HDF5 (and zlib) are available. If the static libraries of HDF5 (and
zlib) are installed/built the macro 'H5_BUILT_AS_STATIC_LIB' needs to
be defined (instead of 'H5_BUILT_AS_DYNAMIC_LIB'). Furthermore, the
Release Lib configuration of the VS2010 solution is set up to build a
static LIB of the matio library (libmatio.lib) and assumes that the
static libraries of HDF5 (and zlib) are installed/built.
2.2.4 Testsuite
A testsuite is available when building with the GNU autotools. To
run the testsuite, first configure and build matio. After building
run 'make check' to run the testsuite. If matio was built without
zlib, the compressed variable tests will be skipped. If built
without HDF5, the tests for version 7.3 MAT files will be skipped.
If the path to the MATLAB application was not specified
('--with-matlab'), the write tests will fail if matio cannot read
the file and skip if matio can read the file. The write tests will
pass if MATLAB is available and can also read the file.
To report matio testsuite failures, compress the testsuite.log file
in the test sub-directory of the build directory. Upload the
compressed log file along with a bug report (see Section 1.4 for
information on reporting bugs).
2.3 Platforms
The library has been tested/used on Linux, Windows, OS X, and AIX
including both little-endian and big-endian architecture.
3.0 License
This software is provided under a Simplified BSD license. See the COPYING
file for details on the license.