Hello fellow Earth hitchhikers, I have just stumbled upon how slow are anonymous functions in Matlab. However, I can't find a convenient alternative. I need to generate about 12 of these channels, each of them having 8 small functions. Here is one for example.
channels = [];
channel.name = 'CHNAF';
channel.area = 10;
channel.g = 0.013;
channel.E = 87.39;
channel.alphaa = @(V,ion) 0.9*(V+19)/(1-exp(-(V+19)/10));
channel.betaa = @(V,ion) 36*exp(-0.055*(V + 44));
channel.infa = @(a,b,V) a/(a+b);
channel.taua = @(a,b,V) 1/(a+b);
channel.na = 3;
channel.alphai = @(V,ion) 0.315*exp(-0.3*(V + 44));
channel.betai = @(V,ion) 4.5/(1 + exp(-(V + 11)/5));
channel.infi = @(a,b,V) a/(a+b);
channel.taui = @(a,b,V) 1/(a+b);
channel.ni = 1;
channels = [channels channel];
The generation is not a problem. But I want to use these functions and the following code makes it very very slow.
ch = channels(1);
curr = ch.area*ch.g*ch.m^ch.na*ch.h^ch.ni*(V-ch.E);
adot = (ch.infa(ch.alphaa(V,ion),ch.betaa(V,ion),V) -h.m)/ch.taua(ch.alphaa(V,ion),ch.betaa(V,ion),V);
idot = (ch.infi(ch.alphai(V,ion),ch.betai(V,ion),V) - ch.h)/ch.taui(ch.alphai(V,ion),ch.betai(V,ion),V);
As noted in this thread it's the use of anonymous functions aka `fun = @(x) x;` that makes it so. *What can I do to make it faster?* (Note I am solving an ODE with those, so they are called thousands times). Two possible concerns you might have.
1. I do have lots of dummy functions and variables there. Ion or V are not always used. Sometimes channel.na or channel.ni are zero, so there is no need to call any functions. I need those for the sake of generality and simplicity.
2. I can get rid of alpha and beta functions by doing `infaNEW = @(V,ion) ch.infa(ch.alphaa(V,ion),ch.betaa(V,ion),V)` This way I'll decrease the number of functions.
Both these enhancements are likely increasing performance 2 fold each, not 20 fold as anonymous functions are slowing me down. Maybe a more direct question: *Is there a way to convert anonymous functions to the normal ones, maybe automatically printing them to .m files?*
P.S I must admit, I was impatient and posted the same post on StackExchange. 
