{"id":2465,"date":"2009-09-18T14:21:19","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T14:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2009\/09\/18\/easier-and-less-error-prone-creation-of-zip-files\/"},"modified":"2009-09-18T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T14:21:19","slug":"easier-and-less-error-prone-creation-of-zip-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2009\/09\/18\/easier-and-less-error-prone-creation-of-zip-files\/","title":{"rendered":"Easier (and less error-prone) creation of Zip files"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n \r\n

Brett<\/a>'s Pick this week is exportToZip<\/tt><\/a>, by fellow MathWorker Malcolm Wood<\/a>.\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/introduction>\r\n

I recently received an email from a File Exchange user informing me that a GUI I had shared for morphologically processing\r\n images (i.e., morphTool<\/tt><\/a>) didn't work. As it turns out, I had neglected to include in the Zip file that I uploaded a couple of functions that were\r\n called internally by morphTool<\/tt>.\r\n <\/p>\r\n

I've made the same mistake before, and I've also downloaded File Exchange files that were missing some key functionality.<\/p>\r\n

This email exchange had me thinking about writing a bit of code to automatically create my Zip files, making sure to include\r\n all necessary supporting function files. MATLAB has a depfun<\/tt><\/a> command that will thoroughly<\/i> analyze a function and determine its dependencies, including, by default, functions in MATLAB Toolboxes. It can take a little\r\n while to generate a report, though, and does a lot more work than is necessary just to create a comprehensive Zip file. Alternatively,\r\n one can easily create a dependency report<\/a> for the current file active in the MATLAB editor by using \"Save and Show Dependency Report\" from the Tools menu. That approach\r\n is much faster than using depfun<\/tt> (with its default options), but leaves you then to manually evaluate one-by-one each function that your top-level function\r\n calls. As you might guess, it's easy to miss a necessary file when you create your Zip.\r\n <\/p>\r\n

Before I started coding, I thought I'd check the File Exchange (wouldn't you?), and I quickly found Malcolm's exportToZip<\/tt>. Malcolm's file uses his own version of depfun<\/tt> (called mydepfun<\/tt>), that smartly uses non-default behavior of depfun<\/tt> to automatically skip files in MATLAB Toolboxes; mydepfun<\/tt> returns the paths to just those files needed for the target Zip file, which is then automatically created.\r\n <\/p>\r\n

I tried exportToZip<\/tt> on morphTool<\/tt>; it worked flawlessly--and quickly! And syntactically, it couldn't be easier to use:\r\n <\/p>\r\n

zipfilename = exportToZip(funcname,zipfilename)<\/tt><\/p>\r\n

Oh, and incidentally, a new version of morphTool<\/tt> will go live soon. Thanks, Malcolm--you saved me a lot of time and effort!\r\n <\/p>\r\n

You gotta love the File Exchange!<\/p>\r\n

Comments?<\/a><\/p>