Are Matlab r2015b files compatible with the r2015a version?

I just started taking a Matlab course at my college and the school computers use the r2015a version. My teacher told me to buy the "Student Edition" of Matlab for the class (the $100 one), but when I go on Mathworks to purchase the software, I see only the r2015b version. Is the 2015b version okay? Is there an "export files to a previous version" function for Matlab? Because I don't see the sale of any r2015a version, so I'm assuming that r2015b has everything covered. Also, my school bookstore sells the student edition of the Matlab software for the same price as Mathworks. But could they be selling a r2015a version? I don't think that would be possible since I haven't seen any sale of the r2015a version on Mathworks.Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

[Adam]

What type of files do you mean? Code files or .mat data files?

As far as I am aware all files are compatible between the two if you simply mean that you want to be able to run the same code in R2015b and R2015a.

Obviously this will not be possible if, in R2015b, you use functions/classes/etc that were only introduced in that version, but if you avoid doing that you should certainly have backwards compatibility for just 1 version ago.

You should need to export files or anything like that, just use the same files in either version.

[Karan Sandhu]

Sorry I meant script (.m) files. By chance, do you know of any features in r2015b that are not compatible with r2015a?

[Adam]

There are no major mainstream ones that I am aware of, but anything in the R2015b release notes will be new to that version. The help manual for functions now gives the version in which the function was added to Matlab too so for any specific function you can easily see this.

Giving a list here would be infeasible though since I don't know all of them and the release notes are a better guide.

R2015b was not a release with huge changes though, unlike R2014b which introduced a new graphics system.