Can I call a bash shell script (using cygwin) through matlab?

I want to call a bash shell script glider_merge.sh from glider_boat_check.m. I need to pass arguments such as location, unit, and year. Do I have to define these in the shell script or can I pass them through matlab?

The glider_merge.sh script merges science and flight data into a .dat file and .mat file. I want to just be able to open glider_boat_check.m, press run which executes glider_merge.sh and then glider_boat_check.m opens the .mat output file and does more diagnostics.

I am (brand) new to UNIX and haven't had much experience with matlab either. Any suggestions would help greatly.

Answer 1

[Titus Edelhofer]

Hi,

you can use the system function to call your shell script. Something like

location = 'Germany';
system(['yourshellscript.sh ' location]);

This way you pass location as parameter to the shell script.

Titus

[Brita Irving]

Thanks for your advice, I found something that works to run the shell script

>> system('C:\cygwin64\bin\bash --login -c "C:/cygwin64/home/bkirving/gliders/ProcArchive/glider_merge.sh"');

I had to update all the paths in glider_merge.sh to full paths so that matlab could work. However, I still haven't been able to pass parameters. I tried >> system(['C:\cygwin64\bin\bash --login -c "C:/cygwin64/home/bkirving/gliders/ProcArchive/glider_merge.sh"' location unit year]); but that does not work.

Any further advice would be great, thanks!

[Ken Atwell]

Are 'location', 'unit', and 'year' MATLAB variables that are already chars? You may be to create a string and then call system on that string:

 str = ['C:\cygwin64\bin\bash --login -c "C:/cygwin64/home/bkirving/gliders/ProcArchive/glider_merge.sh" ' location ' ' unit ' ' year];
 system(str)

[Titus Edelhofer]

And use num2str(year), if year is a number (double) and not a string ...

[Chris Endemann]

I was just working from this solution, and found that the final answer is slightly incorrect. The final double quote should come after the input argument list, i.e.:

str = ['C:\cygwin64\bin\bash --login -c "C:/cygwin64/home/bkirving/gliders/ProcArchive/glider_merge.sh ' location ' ' unit ' ' year '"'];
system(str)