How to tell MATLAB from Freemat programmatically?

Question

I have some code which I need to run both in MATLAB and in Freemat, using different service functions in each case. To make the whole thing portable I need to find a way to determine which functions to call at the start of my code, depending on which environment I am in.

How does one do that?

I was thinking of using the version command but no too sure if this is really robust.

Answer 1

Use verstring in the context of a try \ catch, the output in matlab will be an error while in Freemat it'll be something like "freemat 4.0", for example:

try
    txt=verstring;
    output='Freemat';
catch err
    output='Matlab';
end

Answer 2

I would try to identify each, and give an error if unsure, or ask the user to identify it manually in such case:

% try to identify if it is freeMat
isDefinatelyFreeMat = false;
try
    versionIdentifier=verstring;
    if (strcmpi(versionIdentifier(1:7), 'FreeMat'))
        isDefinatelyFreeMat = true;
    end
catch e
end

% try to identify if it is Matlab
isDefinatelyMatlab = false;
try
    versionIdentifier=ver;
    if (strcmpi(versionIdentifier.Name, 'Matlab'))
        isDefinatelyMatlab = true;
    end
catch e
end

% if identification was not successful
if ((isDefinatelyFreeMat && isDefinatelyMatlab) || (~isDefinatelyFreeMat && ~isDefinatelyMatlab))
    error('Was unable to identify software.');
    % TODO: Ask user to identify software manually
end