Mike on the MATLAB Desktop

March 23rd, 2007

When you’re writing a big M-file, you often end up with a large number of subfunctions or nested functions. Moving between them can be a pain though unless you know some tricks.

First, there is a function dropdown on the Editor’s toolbar. It shows the names of all functions (including subfunctions and nested functions) in alphabetical order, and you can click on a function name to jump to its declaration in the file.

Next, you can use the Editor’s Go To dialog (accessible from the Go menu) to see all the functions in your file. Using the table, it is possible to sort the functions either by name or by line number.

Finally, if you want to get more information about a function that you are calling in your code, you can use Open Selection (CTRL+D with Windows keybindings) to quickly jump to where the function is defined. You don’t actually need to select the function as long as your caret is within the function name, and Open Selection works even if the function lives in a separate file. Note that you can then use the Back button on the Editor toolbar to quickly jump back to the place in the code where the function is used!

By Christina Roberts

Christina has been working on the MATLAB Editor since 2001. When she's able to tear herself away from that, she is chasing after her twins.

07:43 UTC | Posted in Editor | Permalink | 18 Comments »

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

18 Responses to “Moving between functions within a file”

1. bluemax replied on March 23rd, 2007 at 22:35 UTC :
   

   Hi
   Good move creating the blog!,would definitely help people work ‘smarter’.

   I prefer to use the incremental search (ctrl+shift+s) to locate my functions, along with (ctrl+s) for ‘find next’. Though I would really like the search to wrap around.

   Nice addition to ‘Ctrl+g’, I still have the old version with just the line number. However, being a keyboard maniac, I prefer using the mouse and would like more emacsy features.

2. jewa replied on March 26th, 2007 at 09:31 UTC :
   

   I really would love to also have the Back button as a keyboard shortcut. As it is, I can use CTRL+D for viewing a function definition but have to use the mouse to go back. Having Back as a keyboard shortcut would enable me to go back even quicker.

3. Kristin replied on March 26th, 2007 at 16:10 UTC :
   

   Hi Jewa,

   Thanks for the suggestion. We will consider this for a future release.

4. John Reilly replied on March 28th, 2007 at 08:08 UTC :
   

   Hi. I’d love to see “Intellisense” and text completion like uSoft Visual Studio. When I type “ro” a context window pops up under the cursor that contains the function “round”. I can click or arrow to the choice I want and hit return to insert it. A *huge* help would be to include variables that are in scope and fields in a structure when I press “.”. Thanks. john.

5. Kristin replied on March 28th, 2007 at 18:03 UTC :
   

   Hi John, that is something we will consider for a future release. Do you use tab completion in the Editor or Command Window? This will give you the variables in scope and fields in a structure.

6. Jason replied on April 2nd, 2007 at 09:04 UTC :
   

   Is there a keyboard shortcut to move between multiple files that are open in the editor?

7. Kristin replied on April 2nd, 2007 at 13:56 UTC :
   

   Jason,

   Funny that you ask, our post later this week will address that question. Ctrl+PageUp and Ctrl+PageDown should cycle between documents in the editor.

8. Eric Magee replied on April 18th, 2007 at 09:53 UTC :
   

   I am sitting here working in MATLAB on a couple of difference projects and it occurs to me that it would be very nice if I could save the current state of open files in the editor and open a previously saved state – somewhat of a project listing much the same way that MATLAB remembers which files were open when exiting. I frequently switch from project to project and in order to keep the number of files open in the editor to a manageable number, I will close all of the files and start from scratch. If I could save the state before closing all files, I could easily revert back to that project without having to open each file individually.

9. Om Oza replied on May 14th, 2007 at 00:29 UTC :
   

   use Ctrl + F6

10. Kristin replied on May 15th, 2007 at 08:48 UTC :
    

    Thanks fot the suggestion Eric. We are looking into this type of functionality for a future release.

11. Ullrich replied on July 1st, 2007 at 10:34 UTC :
    

    Hi,
    Adding to Eric’s comment:
    Yes, please put in a simple session manager that allows you to open files of the same project to be opened simultaneously! Eg like in KATE (KDE editor).

    Cheers
    UB

12. Bryan replied on August 14th, 2007 at 12:21 UTC :
    

    Would it be possible to have the editor indicate which function is being edited?

13. Christina replied on August 14th, 2007 at 13:34 UTC :
    

    Hi Bryan,

    I’m not sure what you are requesting. Can you give me an example? In the status bar, it does show you the name of the function or subfunction you are currently editing.

14. per isakson replied on August 17th, 2007 at 15:12 UTC :
    

    Hi Christina

    That’s true for subfunctions (R2007a, WinXP), but not for nested function. When I edit nested functions the name of the main-or subfunction that includes the nested function is displayed in the status bar.

    /per

15. Christina replied on August 17th, 2007 at 16:04 UTC :
    

    Yes, that is true. We are considering improving support for nested functions.

16. Ehsan replied on March 25th, 2008 at 14:55 UTC :
    

    It would be great if MATLAB uses an IDE with common functionalities as other IDEs with similar shortcuts,…

17. Flemming replied on March 4th, 2009 at 09:13 UTC :
    

    I know this thread is quite old, but after upgrading to R2008 matlab the Ctrl+F6 does no longer switch between opend tab in the editor. Has it changed to something and if so what?

    Thanks.

18. Peter replied on March 4th, 2009 at 14:47 UTC :
    

    Ctrl+PageDown and Ctrl+PgUp have always (at least since R14, MATLAB 7.0) cycled though the Editor’s tabs. Ctrl+F6 cycles through all windows in the desktop, including the Editor’s tabs when it is docked. It does appear that prior to R2007a, Ctrl+F6 also cycled through the tabs in the undocked Editor but that is no longer the case. The bottom line is: use Ctrl+PageDown and Ctrl+PageUp

Leave a Reply

<pre class="code">
a = magic(3);
sum(a)
</pre>

These postings are the author's and don't necessarily represent the opinions of The MathWorks.