Scheduling File execution using timers: Passing Outputs and/or alternatives

Hello,

I am trying to figure out a way to execute code after a certain time without clogging up Matlab in the mean time (so no use of pause()). Best idea I had for doing so would be to create a timer, which will execute a script provided as string when the timer activates. This works so far, as long as I don't have to feed any more arguments either way. This is also why I can't schedule functions currently, because I can't figure out how I'd get matlab to distinguish between a string containing only a scriptname or a string containing an entire call including in-and output args.

In addition, I can't figure out how to retrieve outputs of said script/function being called through another function. I don't think that is possible to be extracted from a timer callback, and therefore I don't really know how to proceed.

I also realise that this could become problematic if I were to ever have more than one output, although I could probably bundle everything up into a structure and pass that out of the outermost function. The problem is getting outputs from the Callback into the schedFun-workspace so I can pass them out again.

I am not even sure if this is even possible.

%% // Main fun code
function [Out]=schedFun(FiletoTrigger,Time_in_Minutes,NumExec)    % FiletoTrigger: string or char array. NumExec: Number of repetition
if nargin==2 % single execution
    schedFun_Timer=timer('Name','Schedule Funtion Timer (ST)',    ...
        'Period',Time_in_Minutes*60,             ...
        'Tag','schedFunTimer',                   ...
        'StartDelay',Time_in_Minutes*60,         ...
        'TasksToExecute',1,                      ...
        'ExecutionMode','fixedSpacing',          ...
        'UserData',FiletoTrigger,                ...
        'TimerFcn',@myTimerCallbackSchedFun,      ...
        'StopFcn',@myTimerStopCallbackSchedfun);
elseif nargin==3 % multiple executions
    schedFun_Timer=timer('Name','Schedule Funtion Timer (MT)',    ...
        'Period',Time_in_Minutes*60,             ...
        'Tag','schedFunTimer',                   ...
        'StartDelay',Time_in_Minutes*60,         ...
        'TasksToExecute',NumExec,                ...
        'ExecutionMode','fixedSpacing',          ...
        'UserData',FiletoTrigger,                ...
        'TimerFcn',@myTimerCallbackSchedFun,      ...
        'StopFcn',@myTimerStopCallbackSchedfun);
end
start(schedFun_Timer)
end

function myTimerCallbackSchedFun(hObject,eventdata,Userdat)
% Out=eval(hObject.UserData)                                % I tried playing with both eval and evalc until I recognised the problem is 
% Out=evalc(hObject.UserData)                               % passing results out of the callback. "run", as I am now aware, cannot assign 
% run(hObject.UserData);                                    % to outputs, so that's off the table. I am aware that eval is usually not recommended, but
disp('File has been run.')                                  % I am not sure what else would be possible. 
end

function myTimerStopCallbackSchedfun(hObject,eventdata,Userdat)
home
fprintf(('\nScheduler Timer:\n\nThe scheduler was shut down. \nThe file will not be run again.'));
end

Small unrelated rant about the question-editor here:

Why is it (still?) not possible to add a new line below a segment of code if it is at the very bottom of the editor? Whenever that happens, I have to copy everything out from the code section again, then undo until the code section itself disappears, enter another line or two, go up a few lines, insert a new code section and paste my code again. I know I will probably spent less time in my life doing that than I am writing this paragraph right now, but it irks me to no end.

Thank you & stay save.

C.A.