mpm

Matlab Package Installer (mpi)

A simple package manager for Matlab (inspired by pip). Downloads packages from Matlab Central’s File Exchange, GitHub repositories, or any other url pointing to a .zip file.

Quickstart

Download/clone this repo and add it to your Matlab path (using addpath). Now try the following:

mpi install [package-name]: install package by name
mpi uninstall [package-name]: remove package, if installed
mpi search [package-name]: search for package given name (checks Github and Matlab File Exchange)
mpi freeze: lists all packages currently installed
mpi init: adds all installed packages to path (run when Matlab starts up)

What it does

By default, mpi installs all Matlab packages to the directory mpi-packages/. (You can edit mpi_config.m to specify a custom default installation directory.)

If you restart Matlab, you’ll want to run mpi init to re-add all the folders in the installation directory to your Matlab path. Better yet, just run mpi init from your Matlab startup script.

More details

Install a single package

Install (searches FileExchange and Github):

>> mpi install export_fig

When installing, mpi checks for a file in the package called install.m, which it will run after confirming (or add --force to auto-confirm). It also checks for a file called pathlist.m which tells it which paths (if any) to add.

Install a Github release (by tag, branch, or commit)

By tag:

>> mpi install matlab2tikz -t 1.0.0

By branch:

>> mpi install matlab2tikz -t develop

By commit:

>> mpi install matlab2tikz -t ca56d9f

Uninstall

>> mpi uninstall matlab2tikz

When uninstalling, mpi checks for a file in the package called uninstall.m, which it will run after confirming (or add --force to auto-confirm).

Search without installing:

>> mpi search export_fig

Install from a url:

>> mpi install covidx -u https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/76213-covidx

OR:

>> mpi install export_fig -u https://github.com/altmany/export_fig.git

(Note that when specifying Github repo urls you must add the ‘.git’ to the url.)

Install local package:

>> mpi install my_package -u path/to/package --local

The above will copy path/to/package into the default install directory. To skip the copy, add -e to the above command.

Overwrite existing packages:

>> mpi install matlab2tikz --force

Install/uninstall packages in a specific directory:

>> mpi install matlab2tikz -d /Users/mobeets/mypath

Note that the default installation directory is mpi-packages/.

Environments (“Collections”)

mpi has rudimentary support for managing collections of packages. To specify which collection to act on, use -c [collection_name]. Default collection is “default”.

>> mpi install cbrewer -c test
Using collection "test"
Collecting 'cbrewer'...
   Found url: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/58350-cbrewer2?download=true
   Downloading https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/58350-cbrewer2?download=true...
>> mpi init -c test
Using collection "test"
   Adding to path: /Users/mobeets/code/mpi/mpi-packages/mpi-collections/test/cbrewer
   Added paths for 1 package(s).

Installing multiple packages from file

>> mpi install -i /Users/mobeets/example/requirements.txt

Specifying a requirements file lets you install or search for multiple packages at once. See ‘requirements-example.txt’ for an example. Make sure to provide an absolute path to the file!

To automatically confirm installation without being prompted, set --approve. Note that this is only available when installing packages from file.

Moving from `mpm` to `mpi`

mpi was previously known as “mpm”. (We had to change the name because Matlab started using “mpm” as a way of installing Matlab toolboxes.)

One way of transitioning from (our) mpm to mpi is to simply reinstall all packages/collections using mpi, which will use the new default installation path in mpi-packages/. Alternatively, point mpi to the folder containing any previously installed packages by changing mpi-packages to mpm-packages in mpi_config.m.

Troubleshooting

Because there’s no standard directory structure for a Matlab package, automatically adding paths can get a bit messy. When mpi downloads a package, it adds a single folder within that package to your Matlab path. If there are no *.m files in the package’s base directory, it looks in folders called ‘bin’, ‘src’, ‘lib’, or ‘code’ instead. You can specify the name of an internal directory by passing in an -n or internaldir argument. To install a package without modifying any paths, set --nopaths. Or to add all subfolders in a package to the path, set --allpaths.

mpi keeps track of the packages it’s downloaded in a file called mpi.mat, within each installation directory.

Requirements

mpi should work cross-platform on versions Matlab 2014b and later. Also note that, starting with Matlab 2022, you may see a warning when using mpi, as Matlab includes a built-in command of the same name (used for installing Matlab products). You may need to rename the file mpi.m to something else, and then rename the function name on line 1 of this file to match, as well as the line containing “help mpi”.

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mpm