Matlog: Logistics Engineering Matlab Toolbox
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The
Matlab Toolbox Matlog was
developed for use in the courses ISE 453 and ISE 754 at NCSU. The
toolbox contains functions for solving the following types of problems:
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Matlog Reference
Matlog Reference (HTML) provides a listing of help information for each function in the Matlog toolbox. Matlog will work with Versions 6.5 and 7 of Matlab.
Matlab References
Basic Concepts in Matlab, provides a short overview of Matlab.
The Documentation, Manuals, and Tutorials on the MathWorks website (the developers of Matlab) provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference source for Matlab; in particular, Getting Started (HTML) or (PDF) provides a good introduction to Matlab.
Installing Matlog
If connected to the
NCSU network:
Before using the toolbox for the first time and before starting Matlab, you should copy the file startup.m to your home directory. This file creates a path to the toolbox each time you start Matlab. Matlab and Matlog is accessible only from NCSU computers. Other commands that you would like to have executed each time you start Matlab can also be added to the file; for example, the format compact command is at the end of the file and is used to eliminate the blank lines that would otherwise appear between each line of output at the command window.
NCSU Network Startup.m File: First time using toolbox, copy startup.m file to your home directory:
http://www.ise.ncsu.edu/kay/matlog/startup.m
Keep this file in you root K: directory; don't move it to a subdirectory because Matlog only looks into the root directory for the file when it starts.
Start Matlab: Matlab can be started from the icon in the Applications Window. A new window will appear for Matlab. The Matlab command prompt is ">>". Type helpwin to get a help window for all of the available Matlab toolboxes—click near the bottom to get matlog help.
If off-campus:
To use Matlab and Matlog on an off-campus computer, you will need a local version of Matlab (a Student Version of Matlab is available from the NCSU Bookstore) and you will need to copy a zipped file containing the Matlog directory to your local computer (usually, this will be the work subfolder in the main Matlab folder):
Extracting the file will create the folder matlog. You should then update Matlog by using one of the methods described below. It is quickest to manually update via updates.zip when Matlog is first installed, and then automatically thereafter.
Updating Matlog: Individual files in Matlog will change on a regular basis (e.g., fixing errors). The Matlog zip file is not updated as frequently. Instead, there are two ways to get the updates:
- Automatically: The Matlog function matlogupdate.m can be run to
automatically download updates to Matlog files. You can add matlogupdate.m to your startup.m file to have it check
for updates each time you start Matlab.
- Manually: All of the updated files are available in the zipped
file updates.zip (this method will work
if, for some reason, matlogupdate is not working).
Extract the files and then copy them into your Matlog folder, replacing
any existing files of the same name. A new updates.zip file is created each
time Matlog is updated.
See log file for a list of Matlog updates to date.
Off-Campus Startup.m File: Assuming you are using Version R2007a of Matlab, the following statements can be used for your startup.m file by saving them as a new file or adding them to an existing startup.m file (you should not use the NCSU network startup.m file on your off-campus computer). The startup.m file should be placed in the /matlab/toolbox/local folder on your off-campus computer.
% Example startup.m file for off-campus computerpath(path, 'C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2007a\work') % Put extracted matlog folder herematlogupdate % Run to check for Matlog updatesformat compact % Run to eliminate blank lines
Contact
Michael G. Kay, Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.