MATLAB Fun Utils

Functional programming-inspired utility functions for MATLAB. Puts some fun into using MATLAB :-)

Motivation

For some non-vectorizable operations, it's nicer if you can write a one-liner using anonymous function syntax, instead of writing yet another for loop. The utility functions in this library provide such functionality.

Note that MATLAB already provides some similar functionality with its arrayfun and cellfun functions. Do check those functions out, too, if you aren't familiar with them.

Requirements

Should work in any recent version of MATLAB (say, R2012a or higher). Thus far, only tested on R2014b.

Package contents

Note: each function is documented. Use help <function name> or doc <function name> to read the documentation.

Unit tests are also included. Execute runtests tests in the root folder to run them, using MATLAB's built-in Unit Testing framework.

cmap

A basic implementation of a generic map function for processing items in a collection, whether it's a numeric vector, a matrix with rows or columns, a cell array, or a struct array.

Supports parallel processing (pass in the useParallel flag).

cfilter

Basic filter function for filtering items in a collection.

mapfiles

Alternative to MATLAB's dir function. Compare:

files = dir('/my/path/*.png');
images = cell(size(files));
for i = 1:length(files)
    images{i} = imread(fullfile('/my/path', files(i).name));
end

...with:

images = mapfiles('/my/path/*.png', @(f) imread(f));

Also includes support for recursive listing, and basic filtering (files only, directories only, exclude hidden files).

mapsubplots

Easily create a plot with subplots:

mapsubplots(4, @(i) plot(i.*rand(100,1), '-'), 'title', 'Plot %d');

explorecell

A small graphical user interface for exploring the contents of a cell array. Try this, for example:

% Read a bunch of images.
myCell = cmap({'peppers.png', 'fabric.png', 'football.jpg'}, @(f) imread(f));

% Open the Cell Explorer to view all the images.
explorecell(myCell, @(ax,item,idx) imshow(item, 'parent', ax));