Simple Progress Bar
Something like a progress bar could be done similar to this...
Before the parfor
loop :
fprintf('Progress:\n');
fprintf(['\n' repmat('.',1,m) '\n\n']);
And during the loop:
fprintf('\b|\n');
Here we have m
is the total number of iterations, the .
shows the total number of iterations and |
shows the number of iterations completed. The \n
makes sure the characters are printed in the parfor
loop.
Progress Bar and Percentage Completion
Otherwise you could try this: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/32101-progress-monitor--progress-bar--that-works-with-parfor
It will display a progress bar and percentage completion but can be easily modified to just include the percentage completion or progress bar.
This function amends a character to a file on every iteration and then reads the number of characters written to that file which indicates the number of iterations completed. This file accessing method is allowed in parfor
's.
Assuming you correctly add the above to your MATLAB path somehow, you can then use the following:
arglist = [arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4];
parfor_progress(size(arglist, 2)); % Set the total number of iterations
parfor ii = 1:size(arglist, 2)
myfun(arglist(ii));
parfor_progress; % Increment the progress counter
end
parfor_progress(0); % Reset the progress counter
Time to Completion and Percentage Completion
There is also a function called showTimeToCompletion()
which is available from: https://www.soundzones.com/software/sound-zone-tools/
and works alongside parfor_progress
. This function allows you to print a detailed summary of the progress of a parfor loop (or any loop for that matter) which contains the start time, length of time running, estimated finish time and percentage completion. It makes smart use of the \b
(backspace) character so that the command window isn't flooded with text. Although not strictly a progress 'bar' it is perhaps more informative.
The third example in the header of the function file,
fprintf('\t Completion: ');
showTimeToCompletion; startTime=tic;
len=1e2;
p = parfor_progress( len );
parfor i = 1:len
pause(1);
p = parfor_progress;
showTimeToCompletion( p/100, [], [], startTime );
end
outputs the following to the command window:
Completion: 31.00%
Remaining: 00:00:23
Total: 00:00:33
Expected Finish: 3:30:07PM 14-Nov-2017
Useful for estimating the completion of a running simulation, especially one that may take hours or days.