Is it possible to run MATLAB functions from within Python? I search the internet, I could only find PyMat. The bad thing is the compiled version only supports Python2.2 and I am using 2.6. So I tried to download the source code, so I can compile it for myself. But I cannot compile it, VC++ express seems not to have the necessary functionalities to compile it. Does anyone have the compile version for PC? or any substitutes for PyMat? Thanks
I know this is an old question and has been answered. But I was looking for the same thing (for the Mac) and found that there are quite a few options with different methods of interacting with matlab and different levels of maturity. Here's what I found:
A low level interface to Matlab using the matlab engine (libeng
) for communication (basically a library that comes with matlab). The module has to be compiled and linked with libeng.
http://pymat.sourceforge.net
Last updated: 2003
A somewhat short lived continuation of the pymat development. Seems to work on windows (including 64bit), linux and mac (with some changes).
https://code.google.com/p/pymat2/
Last updated: 2012
A high level interface that also comes as a module which needs compilation and linking against libeng
. It exposes Matlab functions to python so you can do fun stuff like
mlab.plot(x, y, 'o')
http://mlabwrap.sourceforge.net
Last updated: 2009
A repackaging effort of mlabwrap. Basically it replaces the c++ code that links against 'libeng' in mlabwrap with a python module (matlabpipe) that communicates with matlab through a pipe. The main advantage of this is that it doesn't need compilation of any kind.
Unfortunately the package currently has a couple of bugs and doesn't seem to work on the mac at all. I reported a few of them but gave up eventually. Also, be prepared for lots of trickery and a bunch of pretty ugly hacks if you have to go into the source code ;-) If this becomes more mature it could be one of the best options.
https://github.com/ewiger/mlab
last update: 2013
A newer package (2010) that also interacts with Matlab through libeng
. Unlike the other packages this one loads the engine library through ctypes thus no compilation required. Its not without flaws but still being maintained and the (64bit Mac specific) issues I found should be easy enough to fix.
(edit 2014-05-20: it seems those issues have already been fixed in the source so things should be fine with 0.2.4)
http://pymatlab.sourceforge.net
last update: 2014
Also a newer package that is still actively maintained. Communicates with Matlab through some sort of socket. Unfortunately the exposed functions are a bit limited. I couldn't figure out how to invoke a function that takes structs as parameters. Requires zmq, pyzmq and IPython which are easy enough to install.
http://arokem.github.io/python-matlab-bridge
last update: 2014