can i pause matlab excution while it is already running
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hi every on ,
can i pause matlab excution while it is already running
(i.e) if i have a script and is already running can i pause it for any time then resuming it again .
thanks a lot .
2 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 31 May 2016
That will not work unless there is a figure() or drawnow() or pause() or waitfor() or uiwait() somewhere in the code. Pushbuttons are not serviced until the graphics queue is processed, which requires one of the above to happen.
Answers (6)
Nick Hilton
on 12 Oct 2015
If you're on a UNIX platform, then there is an easy way to do this:
Simply run your script on the command line in a BASH shell like so:
matlab -nodesktop -nosplash -r "run_some_script(arg1, arg2, ...)"
Now that it is running, you can pause execution by pressing CTRL+Z, which pauses execution and returns you to the BASH prompt again. To continue execution, execute the 'fg' command to put the suspended job back into the foreground.
Another advantage to this approach, most graphical terminals provide an output buffer, and one can scroll and examine the output buffer without pausing the execution, and without new output causing the buffer to scroll the screen. So I can look at the buffer to tell where the execution is in a loop, for example, without pausing anything.
I hope this helps someone that finds this topic.
3 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 15 Sep 2018
To consult the output buffer, use the Page Up / Page Down keys, or use whatever scrollbar your terminal application provides. Here, "output buffer" refers a configurable number of lines of stdout .
For example on OS-X, inside the Terminal.app utility, Preferences -> Profiles -> Window permits me to configure whether I want scrollback to be limited to available memory, or to a specific number of output lines.
Image Analyst
on 31 May 2016
With R2016a, there is now a Pause button on the tool ribbon that appears when your code runs:

0 Comments
Mahdi
on 27 Mar 2013
You can pause the script/function that you're running for a specified amount of time without quitting the script.
If you're using a GUI, I would suggest looking at uiwait.
0 Comments
Omer Moussaffi
on 14 Dec 2014
Not without preparation. You could add the command 'keyboard' into the script at a specified place, and then it would give you back control. You then do your changes, and either call 'return' to resume or dbquit to stop the script.
0 Comments
jingxuan yang
on 24 Mar 2020
use
uiwait
to pause
and use
uiresume
to continue
1 Comment
Walter Roberson
on 25 Mar 2020
Yes, if you have the cooperation of the code being run, if it knows that you should pause there, or if it regularly calls one of the functions such as drawnow() that processes the event queue to permit a callback to be triggered to run the uiwait()
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