What is the difference between .m and .mat files in MATLAB

matlab file-io file-extension
user477670 picture user477670 · Oct 16, 2010 · Viewed 76.4k times · Source

When I traced my reference MATLAB script, I found files with the .mat extension. My questions are:

  1. What is the difference between .mat and .m files?
  2. How does one open files with the .mat extension?

Answer

gnovice picture gnovice · Oct 16, 2010

Files with a .m extension contain MATLAB code, either in the form of a script or a function.

Files with a .mat extension contain MATLAB formatted data, and data can be loaded from or written to these files using the functions load and save, respectively. You can also access and change variables directly in MAT-files without loading them into memory using the function matfile.

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