MATLAB fork a (MS Windows) process - matlab

Question

Im trying to fork a (MS Windows) process from matlab
myCaller = ['theExe.exe' ' its arguments' ' &'];
system(myCaller);
However, I cannt achieve a fork.
Eventually, what im trying to do is to start a (MS Windows) process, and close the calling MATLAB routine.
Any suggestions of how to achieve the above?

Answer 1

It's tough; I'm working on the same thing at the moment in Ubuntu.
Basically, MATLAB will sit and wait for the spawned program to complete before it continues with its own process, in spite of the & at the end.
The workaround I have been using has been to make use of a mex-file which creates a separate thread (using pthread). This separate thread starts theExe.exe, while the main mex thread exits.
Some untested hacked-together bits of my code which illustrates the process:
#include "mex.h"
#include <iostream>
#include "pthread.h" /* for threading */
// thread function which calls system call, and waits for it to finish
void *do_thread(void *pid)
{
mexPrintf("In thread\n");
// replace this with your system call - don't know if std::system works on windows?
std::system("your_system_call");
pthread_exit(NULL);
}
// main mex function
void mexFunction (int nlhs, mxArray * plhs[], int nrhs, const mxArray * prhs[])
{
pthread_t thread;
mexPrintf("In main: creating thread\n");
rc = pthread_create(&thread, NULL, do_thread, (void *)v);
return;
}
On Ubuntu, this can be compiled something like:
mex mex_filename.cpp -I/usr/include/ -lpthread -lrt
I admit I don't know how to compile this on Windows, but versions of pthreads does exist for Windows.