Behaviour ofparfeval depends on debugging state (Bug?)

I have the following function, which should return false. If I set a breakpoint at the first line, and then step through the program, I get the message:

Analyzing and transferring files to the workers ...done

and the function returns false. But when I just execute the function, no message is issued and the function returns true. Is this a bug?

function ret = testparfeval;

F = parfeval( gcp(), @afssasgdd, 0 ); %this is a non-existent function

while( isequal(F(1).State,'queued') );

pause( 0.1 ); end;

ret = isempty( F.Error );

Answer 1

[Edric Ellis]

I suspect this is because when you don't stop in the debugger, the function can return as soon as F gets into state 'running', i.e. before it gets to state 'finished'. Rather than polling the State property, I'd recommend using the wait method, like this:

F = parfeval(gcp(), @afssasgdd, 0);
wait(F);
didError = ~isempty(F.Error)

The wait method can take an optional timeout if you wish.