External Interfaces/API    

Passing Two or More Inputs or Outputs

The plhs[] and prhs[] parameters are vectors that contain pointers to each left-hand side (output) variable and each right-hand side (input) variable, respectively. Accordingly, plhs[0] contains a pointer to the first left-hand side argument, plhs[1] contains a pointer to the second left-hand side argument, and so on. Likewise, prhs[0] contains a pointer to the first right-hand side argument, prhs[1] points to the second, and so on.

This example, xtimesy, multiplies an input scalar by an input scalar or matrix and outputs a matrix. For example, using xtimesy with two scalars gives

Using xtimesy with a scalar and a matrix gives

This is the corresponding MEX-file C code.

As this example shows, creating MEX-file gateways that handle multiple inputs and outputs is straightforward. All you need to do is keep track of which indices of the vectors prhs and plhs correspond to the input and output arguments of your function. In the example above, the input variable x corresponds to prhs[0] and the input variable y to prhs[1].

Note that mxGetScalar returns the value of x rather than a pointer to x. This is just an alternative way of handling scalars. You could treat x as a 1-by-1 matrix and use mxGetPr to return a pointer to x.


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