I wanted to do matlab in Jupyter notebook because their live scripts suck

Overview

Matlab is one of the worst languages ever despite of having many invaluable features [1] [2].

Previously I have had used Matlab about 5 years ago and recently needed it again. MathWorks has tried to incorporate a Jupyter notebook like feature called live scripts into Matlab. While Jupyter notebook being really useful for interactive coding, I had a hard time adjusting to the Matlab live scripts. So here’s how I setup Matlab with Jupyter notebook (After having Matlab and Jupyter notebook installed obviously)

Setting up the Matlab kernel

  1. Go to you Matlab installation directory/extern/engines/python

    cd /usr/local/MATLAB/R2020b/extern/engines/python

  2. Run the setup.py (You might need sudo depending on the python installation you have)

    python3 setup.py install

  3. Install the matlab kernel (Might need sudo)

    python3 -m pip install matlab-kernelCollecting matlab-kernel

These are the basic steps but here’s a more detailed guide from MathWorks if needed. Now you can start jupyter notebook as usual and you’ll see a Matlab option in open new notebook drop down.

drop down

Matlab notebooks

You can straight away start writing Matlab code in the Matlab notebook just like you have used it with python. Here’s a few tips I figured out while using the notebook

Plotting

Inline plots are displayed by default just like in python matplotlib plotting. However, if you need to change the plot properties, you’ll have to use some Jupyter magic commands like this.

  1. Popup plot

    %plot native

  2. Switch back to inline plot

    %plot inline

  3. Plot size

    %plot --size 600,200 (width, height)

plot

They work just like how they work in the Matlab software. i.e. Type simulink and shift+enter -> you’ll get the simulink GUI.

Python code in Matlab notebooks

You can have python (or any other language which you have support for Jupyter notebook) code cells inside the Matlab notebook. Just use the magic %%python at the start of the cell.

py in matlab notebook

Matlab cells in Python notebooks

This is not as straightforward as having python cells in a Matlab notebook. Here’s how you do it [source]

  1. First you have to register IPython magics

    import metakernel; metakernel.register_ipython_magics()

  2. Then start the Matlab kernel

    %kernel matlab_kernel.kernel MatlabKernel

Now you can have Matlab code in cells starting with the magic %%kx

matlab in py notebook

Further reading

This course has several tutorials with examples on Matlab in Jupyter.

Here is the Matlab kernel git.

Please feel free to comment any other useful features I have missed. Cheers!