removeDrivesFromHis​tory

A solution to the problem of Matlab consuming an enormous amount of time to recover from an "Undefined function or variable" error.

The "current folder history" stores paths to directories that were once current (it differs from the search path). When paths from networks end up on the current folder history and the network becomes unavailable, an undefined variable or function (often caused by a typo) may cause an unbearable delay in the error message to appear [1,2,3]. To alleviate this problem, this function produces a GUI that will list all paths on the current folder history and you can select which paths to remove from the history. The GUI will create a backup of your original history in case you want to restore it.

This has been developed in Matlab r2017b and does not work with previous releases but the problem did not occur prior to then anyway. This works with PC (I'd love for a collaborator to adapt this to Mac and become a co-author).

For discussion on this topic, see the link in reference #2.

[1] https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/395876-undefined-function-error-is-very-slow-to-occur
[2] https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/364153-40-seconds-waiting-for-undefined-function-or-variable-error-2017b
[3] https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/412972-matlab-218a-stalls-on-undefined-variables