System Commands

Interact programmatically with operating system and MATLAB® environment

System commands provide programmatic access to your operating system and the MATLAB environment. Using these commands, you can access information about your computer, copy content to the system clipboard, get and set environment variables, and execute operating system commands. To access and modify options for tools within MATLAB, such as the Command Window, Editor, or App Designer, use settings. To store and access your own data across MATLAB sessions, create custom settings.

Functions

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clipboardCopy and paste text to and from system clipboard
computerInformation about computer on which MATLAB is running
systemExecute operating system command and return output
cmdsepCommand separator for current platform (Since R2023b)
dosExecute DOS command and return output
unixExecute UNIX command and return output
getenvGet environment variable
loadenvLoad environment variables from .env and plain text files (Since R2023a)
isenvDetermine if environment variable exists (Since R2022b)
setenvSet environment variable
unsetenvRemove environment variable (Since R2022b)
perlCall Perl script using operating system executable
winqueryregItem from Windows registry
matlabProcessIDProcess identifier for MATLAB code execution process (Since R2025a)
matlab.io.saveVariablesToScriptSave workspace variables to MATLAB script
getprefGet custom setting value
setprefSet custom setting value
addprefAdd custom setting
rmprefRemove custom preference
isprefDetermine if custom setting exists
settingsAccess the SettingsGroup root object
clearTemporaryValueClear temporary value for setting
clearPersonalValueClear personal value for setting
clearInstallationValueClear installation value for setting (Since R2022a)
hasActiveValueDetermine whether setting has active value set (Since R2024a)
hasTemporaryValueDetermine whether setting has temporary value set
hasPersonalValueDetermine whether setting has personal value set
hasInstallationValue Determine whether setting has installation value set (Since R2022a)
hasFactoryValueDetermine whether setting has factory value set
addSettingAdd new setting
addGroupAdd new settings group
hasGroupDetermine if settings group exists
hasSettingDetermine if setting exists in settings group
removeGroupRemove settings group
removeSettingRemove setting
SettingRepresents individual setting
SettingsGroupGroup of settings and subgroup objects
matlab.settings.mustBeLogicalScalarValidate that setting value is a logical scalar
matlab.settings.mustBeNumericScalarValidate that setting value is a numeric scalar
matlab.settings.mustBeStringScalarValidate that setting value is a string scalar
matlab.settings.mustBeIntegerScalarValidate that setting value is an integer scalar

Settings

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matlab.codeanalyzer SettingsCode analyzer settings
matlab.colors SettingsMATLAB syntax highlighting color settings for light theme
matlab.commandwindow SettingsCommand Window settings including text display settings (Since R2020b)
matlab.fonts SettingsCode font settings
matlab.general SettingsGeneral settings including MAT-file and random number settings
matlab.keyboard SettingsKeyboard settings including suggestions and completions settings
matlab.editor SettingsEditor settings, including language, backup, and display settings
matlab.appdesigner SettingsApp Designer settings, including canvas editor and component browser settings

Topics

Related Information