Putting in MATLAB codes in a box as figures?

Question

how do I put MATLAB codes in a box or deal with them as if they are figures? Is there a way to do it within LaTeX itself? I am currently using the verbatim environment to present my codes and to be honest, I don't think they are very well presented!

Answer 1

You can use the listings package for code snippets

texdoc listings

A simple MWE follows

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{listings}

\begin{document}

\lstset{language=matlab,frame=single}

\begin{lstlisting}[float,caption=My caption here]
function [] = wordsearch( words, N )

if nargin<1
    words{1} = 'monkey';
    words{2} = 'hippo';
    words{3} = 'girraffe';
    words{4} = 'crocodile';
    words{5} = 'kangaroo';

    N = 20;
end
\end{lstlisting}

\end{document}

Answer 2

I would use mcode from Matlabcentral for this purpose since it is customized for matlab.

Say, the contents of ff16.m is like this:

%%
%Initialization
clear all   
clc
for f=1:20
p=2;                         % dimension of search space 
s=26;                        % The number of bacteria 
Nc=36;                       % Number of chemotactic steps 
Ns=20;                        % Limits the length of a swim 
Nre=4;                       % The number of reproduction steps 
Ned=2;                       % The number of elimination-dispersal events 
Sr=s/2;                      % The number of bacteria reproductions (splits) per generation 
Ped=0.25;                    % The probabilty that each bacteria will be eliminated/dispersed 
c(:,1)=0.005*ones(s,1);       % the run length  
for m=1:s                    % the initital posistions 
    P(1,:,1,1,1)=0+rand(1,s)*(1-(0))';
    P(2,:,1,1,1)=0+rand(1,s)*(1-(0))';
   %P(3,:,1,1,1)= .2*rand(s,1)';
end  

Now I want to insert this code in my tex file and I do not want to type or copy/paste it again. This is how it can be done provided ff16.m, my main.tex file and mcode.sty are all in the same folder:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[framed,numbered,autolinebreaks,useliterate]{mcode}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\caption{My program}
\lstinputlisting{ff16.m}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

The result will be:

Without figure environment, the code will have a box. Since you wanted to float this code like a figure, I have just used figure environment and every thing (that should work for a figure like a caption) should work as expected.

Better way to present a code would be:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[framed,numbered,autolinebreaks,useliterate]{mcode}
\begin{document}
%\begin{figure}
%\caption{My program}
\lstinputlisting[caption=My code here]{ff16.m} % note the caption here.
%\end{figure}
\end{document}

Advantage here is the caption will read Listing 1: My code here instead of Figure 1:.... (You can change Listing 1: by \renewcommand{\lstlistingname}{My program} to get My program 1:)

Also, note that the long comments are wrapped automatically at the end of the line.

For details, refer to the mcode.sty file itself, from the above link (matlab central).