samer@43: % pipein - start shell command and return stream for reading standard output
samer@43: % pipein :: 
samer@43: %    text ~'bash shell command',
samer@43: %    bool ~'quiet operation flag'
samer@43: % -> java.io.InputStream ~ 'connected to stdout of command',
samer@43: %    (void -> action void) ~'call this to clean up afterwards'.
samer@43: %
samer@43: % If quiet flag is not supplied, it defaults to false.
samer@0: function [str,cleanup]=pipein(cmd,q)
samer@0: 	if nargin<2, q=false; end
samer@0: 	if ~q, fprintf('Starting sub-process: %s\n',cmd); end
samer@42: 
samer@42: 	% OK, here's the deal: the line below doesn't work if Matlab and
samer@42: 	% Java do not agree about their default character encoding, which
samer@42: 	% can happen if you change Matlab's character encoding with, eg
samer@42: 	% >> feature('DefaultCharacterSet','UTF-8')
samer@42: 	% As far as a I can tell, you cannot change the character encoding
samer@42: 	% using by Runtime.exec() for command line arguments once the JVM
samer@42: 	% has been started, and, somewhat perversely, Matlab ingores the 
samer@42: 	% value of the LANG environment variable on startup, preferring to
samer@42: 	% us the encoding specified in $MATLAB_ROOT/bin/lcdata.xml
samer@42: 
samer@42: 	% NOT GOOD:
samer@42: 	% process=java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().exec({'bash','-c',cmd});
samer@42: 
samer@42: 	% this is what we're going to do instead: start bash with no
samer@42: 	% arguments to make it read from standard input, then write cmd 
samer@42: 	% with proper encoding to that stream.
samer@42: 
samer@42: 	% BETTER:
samer@50: 	cs=feature('DefaultCharacterSet');
samer@42: 	process=java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().exec('bash');
samer@43: 	writer=java.io.OutputStreamWriter(process.getOutputStream(),cs);
samer@42: 	writer.write(cmd); writer.close();
samer@42: 
samer@0: 	str=process.getInputStream();
samer@0: 	cleanup=@dispose;
samer@0: 
samer@0: 	function dispose
samer@0: 		if ~q, fprintf('Killing subprocess...\n'); end
samer@0: 		process.destroy();
samer@0: 	end
samer@0: end