Creating tic/toc vector in MATLAB GUI - matlab

Question

I built a GUI using the GUIDE feature in Matlab. I have many push buttons. I start by clicking one push button to start tic. Then when I click any of the other push buttons, I want to build a vector of toc time stamps. How do I do this?

Answer 1

The most robust solution is to store and manipulate the vector in the GUI's handles structure. First, in your "create function", initialize the start and stop vectors:
function yourGui_CreateFcn ( hObject , eventdata , handles )
% Initialize the start and stop vectors.
handles.timeStart = [];
handles.timeStop = [];
% Update the GUI handles structure.
guidata ( hObject , handles );
end
Then, in your first button, start the timer and store it to your handles vector.
function button1_Callback ( hObject , eventdata , handles )
% Start the timer, updating the value in the handles structure.
handles.timeStart = tic;
% Update the GUI data so that timer is available to other functions.
guidata ( hObject , handles );
end
Next, in each of your other button callbacks, retrieve the starting time from the handles structure and determine the elapsed time:
function button2_Callback ( hObject , eventdata , handles )
% Retrieve the start time.
timeStart = handles.timeStart;
% Determine the elapsed time.
timeElapsed = toc ( timeStart );
% Store the new value in the handles structure.
handles.timeStop(end+1,1) = timeElapsed;
% Update the guidata.
guidata ( hObject , handles );
end
Finally, you can output the values from the GUI using the "output function".
function yourGui_OutputFcn ( hObject , eventdata , handles )
% Specify the output variables.
varargout { 1 } = handles . timeStart;
varargout { 2 } = handles . timeStop;
end
You would then execute your gui using the following statement in the command line:
>> [timeStart,timeStop] = yourGui ( );