MAT-File API Library and Include Files

MATLAB^® provides include and library files to write programs to read and write MAT-files. The following table lists the path names to these files. The term matlabroot refers to the root folder of your MATLAB installation. The term arch is a unique string identifying the platform.

MAT-File API Folders

Platform	Contents	Folder
Microsoft^® Windows^®	Include files	`matlabroot``\extern\include`
	Libraries	`matlabroot``\bin\win64`
	Examples	`matlabroot``\extern\examples\eng_mat`
macOS Linux^®	Include files	`matlabroot``/extern/include`
	Libraries	`matlabroot``/bin/``arch`
	Examples	`matlabroot``/extern/examples/eng_mat`

MAT-File API Include Files

The matlabroot\extern\include folder holds header files containing function declarations with prototypes for the routines that you can access in the API Library. These files are the same for Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. The folder contains:

mat.h — Function prototypes for mat routines
matrix.h — Definitions of the mxArray structure and function prototypes for matrix access routines

MAT-File API Libraries

The name of the libraries folder, which contains the shared (dynamically linkable) libraries, is platform-dependent.

Shared Libraries on Windows Systems

The bin folder contains the run-time version of the shared libraries:

MAT-File library — matlabroot\extern\lib\win64\compiler\libmat.lib
Matrix library — matlabroot\extern\lib\win64\compiler\libmx.lib
MEX library (optional) — matlabroot\extern\lib\win64\compiler\libmex.lib

Shared Libraries on Linux Systems

The bin/arch folder, where arch is the value returned by the computer('arch') command, contains the shared libraries.

MAT-File library — matlabroot/bin/glnxa64/libmat.so
Matrix library — matlabroot/bin/glnxa64/libmx.so
MEX library (optional) — matlabroot/extern/bin/glnxa64/libmex.so

Shared Libraries on macOS Systems

The bin/arch folder, where arch is the value returned by the computer('arch') command, contains the shared libraries. For example, on Apple macOS 64-bit systems, the folder is bin/maci64:

MAT-File library — matlabroot/bin/maci64/libmat.dylib
Matrix library — matlabroot/bin/maci64/libmx.dylib
MEX library (optional) — matlabroot/extern/bin/maci64/libmex.dylib

Example Files

The extern/examples/eng_mat folder contains C/C++ and Fortran source code for examples demonstrating how to use the MAT-file routines.

Documentation