Why do I receive an error message about a missing operator, semicolon, or white space in pathdef.m?

I receive the following error message when I start MATLAB:

 ??? Error: File: C:\MATLAB6p5\toolbox\local\pathdef.m Line: 13 Column: 23

 Missing operator, comma, semicolon, or white space.

 Error in ==> C:\MATLAB6p5\toolbox\local\matlabrc.m

 On line 17  ==>   matlabpath(pathdef);

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This bug has been fixed for Release 14 (R14). For previous releases, please read below for any possible workarounds:

This problem is due to adding a directory containing a quote to the MATLAB path using the PATHTOOL.

You can solve the problem by opening pathdef.m using a general text editor (such as Notepad) and replacing the single quote in the path definition by two single quotes.

For example, assume you have added a directory matlabroot\work\edwin's to the MATLAB path using pathtool. Open matlabroot\toolbox\local\pathdef.m (where matlabroot is your root MATLAB installation directory) and replace:

 matlabroot,'\work\edwin's;',...

with

 matlabroot,'\work\edwin''s;',...

In the future, please try avoiding directory names that contain a quote.