Matlab save path

Matlab allows you to add paths to the search path and you are supposed to be able to save it so that you don't need to add the paths again the next time. However when I tried to save the paths, the new paths didn't show up when I restarted Matlab. I'm running MATLAB R2012a and Ubuntu 12.04.

This post helps me solve the problem. After saving the new paths, a new file is created in ~/Documents/MATLAB because I do not have write permission in the default installation location. However the new pathdef.m file is not read when Matlab starts. To solve this, you can add startup.m in ~/Documents/MATLAB if that's your urserpath. Add the following line to the file:

path(pathdef)

On Windows 7, when you set path through the dialog box, it will add the new paths to the pathdef.m file in the installation folder. This will affect other users' path. To add the paths so only you will see it, you can do the similar thing before by adding a startup.m file in C:\Users\[username]\Documents\MATLAB if that is your statup path. On Windows, it won't ask you to specifiy a new file to save the paths, so you need to copy the pathdef.m file from the installation folder (default is C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2013a\toolbox\local\pathdef.m) to the userpath.

However, one problem I encountered when I start from the userpath is that some functions in the parallel computing toolbox no longer work. Turns that there seem to be some conflicts between the toolbox and the Bayesian Network Toolbox (BNT) I'm using. After moving the BNT to the bottom of the search path, everything works again.