finish

User-defined termination script for MATLAB

Syntax

finish

Description

finish executes user-specified commands when exiting. MATLAB^® calls the finish.m script, if defined, whenever you do one of the following.

• Click the close button on the MATLAB desktop on Microsoft^® Windows^® platforms or the equivalent on UNIX^® platforms.

• Type quit or exit at the command prompt.

If an error occurs in the finish script, then quit is canceled so that you can correct your finish.m file without losing your workspace.

Examples

Save Workspace to MAT-File

Use the MATLAB sample file finishsav.m to save the workspace to a MAT-file when MATLAB quits.

To view the contents or edit the file, open the finishsav.m file in the editor.

edit(fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','local','finishsav.m'));

Copy the file to the search path and rename it to finish.m.

copyfile(fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','local','finishsav.m'),fullfile(userpath,'finish.m'))

Display Quit Dialog Box

Use the MATLAB sample file finishdlg.m to display a custom dialog box allowing you to cancel when MATLAB quits.

To view the contents or edit the file, open the finishdlg.m file in the editor.

edit(fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','local','finishdlg.m'));

Copy the file to the search path and rename it to finish.m.

copyfile(fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','local','finishdlg.m'),fullfile(userpath,'finish.m'))

To display this confirmation dialog box, set the Confirm before exiting MATLAB option in the General Confirmation Dialogs Preferences page of the Preferences.

Tips

• When using graphics objects in finish.m, call uiwait, waitfor, or drawnow so that figures are visible.

Version History

Introduced before R2006a