Here is a python function that prints how many licences are available and returns in this case. If there are no licenses available it tries again. The function calls the system command "lmutil" which is a license administration utility installed along with MATLAB. It writes the output to a file 'mat_lic.info'. Parses this file until it finds a line where there is information about the licence. Always check this file because its format may change through different MATLAB versions and the script needs modification. It works for MATLAB R2014b:
import subprocess
def matlab_license():
while True:
# substitute port and server with correct values
# lmutil may not be in path. Put the whole path instead.
lic_server=['lmutil','lmstat','-a','-c','port@server']
cmdout = subprocess.check_output(lic_server)
F=open('mat_lic.info','w')
F.write(cmdout)
F.close()
F=open('mat_lic.info','r')
for line in F:
if 'Users of MATLAB' in line:
text = line
break
F.close()
num=[]
for word in text.split():
if word.isdigit():
num.append(word)
lic_avail = max(num) - min(num)
if lic_avail < 2:
print "Only %d licence(s) found. Trying again." % lic_avail
else:
print "Found %d licenses availabe." % lic_avail
return
