Matlab >= R2020b

add robustness throughout by requiring R2020b or newer.

End of older Matlab less than R2020b

It was an interesting exercise to support old releases of Matlab. However, not using arguments syntax introduced in R2019b and validators of R2020b hampers good code style and maintenance. We respect those on older releases, but we choose to up the minimum Matlab release for better style for most of our users.

Broad compatibility including GNU Octave

v5.8.5

test tag

Most functions work with R2017b and newer

Except for subprocess_run(), most functions work with Matlab R2017b and newer. This should cover almost all users of Matlab in the present era.

improve speed and reliability

More careful approach to catching exceptions, using try-catch as a first line approach for speed.

add has_parallel_toolbox(), no walk up on Normalize, relative_to

• add has_parallel_toolbox()

Don't walk up ".." directories with normalize, relative_to as this can be surprising if symlinks are removed from a path. This also affects canonical strict=false when path doesn't exist.

matlab.perftest.TestCase benchmarking, 100x speedups on Windows to some functions

use matlab.perftest.TestCase to test and compare certain functions and improve speed of certain functions up to 100x on Windows.

more consistent error handling

add Perl backend and functions

Added Perl backend (in addition to .NET, Java, and Python) to allow for faster execution when available.
Since Perl is bundled with Matlab on Windows and generally available on macOS and Linux systems, Perl is useful as an additional backend.
In particular, for the stdlib.samepath() function, Perl is like 20x or more faster than using multiple system() calls as a fallback.
All of these backends are optional, but generally faster than system() calls.
The core functionality is done with native Matlab code when possible.

Added functions:

• is_dev_drive()
• get_uid()
• get_process_priority()

R2019b+ Linux, and most fcns for WIndows, macOS

• add functions matlabOlderThan(), allToolboxes(), toolbox_used()
• Vectorize more functions
• remove type validation where not strictly needed to speedup runtime

stdlib.matlabOlderThan(release) works back at least to R2011b, which was the oldest Matlab we tried.

Add numerous functions. Add optional .NET and Python backends to Java

Full Changelog: v5.5.0...v5.6.0

• add numerous functions
• Vectorize (take scalar or array input) several filesystem inquiry functions
• remove MEX C++ backend (at least for now) since the complexity is not needed with fallback to .NET, Python, Java, and even system() calls as a last resort if native Matlab code can't implement a function
• greatly improve the test coverage, with each function backend being tested if the backend is available on the test computer
• optional Matlab test can do incremental tests as there's over 600 self-tests.