Comments on: I’ve got something to cell you

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:47:46 +0000

Hi Patrik,

We didn’t intentionally exclude the ability to use breakpoints in cell mode — this was actually a consequence of the way cell mode was implemented. We’re working to remedy this issue.

-Ken

By: Patrik Brynolfsson

Patrik Brynolfsson — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:22:01 +0000

Another vote for breakpoints in cell mode! I’m really surprised that it’s not implemented from the start, what harm do breakpoints do? For rapid execution of part of the code when evaluating and developing this would be very useful. Knowing which line threw an error is also necessary, why did the guys at matlab not think this was needed in cell mode beats me.

By: AV_R

AV_R — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:31:59 +0000

I’m also highly interested in having breakpoints in cell mode. I use the cell mode to prototype quickly some code which typically ends up as part of some function. Hence, the ability to debug this code would be very helpful.

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:19:46 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Tim — we’ll certainly take it under consideration. Glad you found the post useful!

-Ken

By: Tim Smith

Tim Smith — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:46:45 +0000

Another voice for breakpoints here — this looks like it should be fantastically useful, but no breakpoint support makes this feature much less interesting as a rapid code iteration tool, particularly in the context of debugging algorithms. Thanks for a great intro post, though!

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:44:09 +0000

Fiona,

I am not sure what you mean by F5 does not work. Can you verify:

(1) That F5 is the keystroke listed next to Run xxx.m in the Debug menu? (where xxx is the name of the file you are editing).

(2) Does it fail just for one file or all files?

(3) Try creating a new script with just the following line:
disp(’hello world’). Press F5.

(4) What is your computer setup? Are you using windows or a different OS? Are you at the machine running MATLAB or are you connecting over a remote connection?

By: Fiona

Fiona — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:52:24 +0000

I try to debug/run my .m files or using F5 but it does not work (nothing shows in the command window not even errors) only the cell mode is working but this bug me. Can you please tell me how to be able to use F5 instead of cell mode.

thank you!

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:42:02 +0000

Hi Alexander,

Glad to hear you like publishing! As for accessing cells within a file, are you asking for something like this:

someCell = myfile.cells[1]
% do something with the cell here.

Out of curiosity, how would you use such a feature?

-Ken

By: Alexander Kemp

Alexander Kemp — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:16:41 +0000

I definitly like cell mode for publishing. The major point which is missing for me is programmatic access to the currently evaluated cell/to the list of cells in a m-file. Maybe i am blind, but i did not find it in the manual.

By: Sven

Sven — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:54:06 +0000

A little late in my response, but I’ll go on…

I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Kominsky. I also use cell mode during algorithm development. It’s very useful for zooming in on a chunk of code and, as Ken points out, also useful for teasing out a separable chunk that can become a function.

The whole point here though, is that this is exactly the environment in which breakpoints would be useful. Particularly when your m-file is a script, I find it hard to break execution on the line I want. I often go to the lengths of selecting all the previous text, commenting it out, and then running the code with f5 and my breakpoints on. (and then uncommenting when I’m done).

I have to admit that I’m not (yet) using publish so I may be missing something here, but I’m not sure how having breakbpoints disabled in cell mode is useful to the user.

Thanks,
Sven.