How to avoid duplicate running of Matlab Standalone Exe Application

I have created a matlab exe standalone application. But If a accidentally run same exe file at any other location, it will corrupt the output files of my present running exe application. So i want to lock the running matlab exe application in view of windows task manager. If my application is "DataValidation.exe", how can i lock system for avoiding other duplicate run of my application.

If i duplicate run the application, it has to show the

msgbox("Already other application is in Progress");

and close the duplication run. How can i avoid this duplicate run..?

[Suneesh]

How about renaming the output files with a unique identifier (like date/time) for each run?

[Kanchibhotla Chandra Sekhar]

My main concern is not duplicate the running of same exe file rather corrupting of output files.

Answer 1

[Friedrich]

Hi,

you could use the DOS function tasklist:

[~,b] = system('tasklist /fi "Imagename eq DataValidation.exe"')

and post process the output. However simply renaming the application would workaround that check.

Maybe consider creating a /checking for a file in the output folder at startup of your application. So something like

If LOCK_FILE_EXIST
  ABORT_START_OF_APPLICATION
ELSE
 CREATE_LOCK_FILE
 NORMAL_START
 DELTE_LOCK_FILE_AT_THE_END

OR in the case you are familar with .NET you could use a global mutex like explained here. So porting this to MATLAB would give

mutex = System.Threading.Mutex(true,'{8F6F0AC4-B9A1-45fd-A8CF-72F04E6BDE8F}') 
if mutex.WaitOne(System.TimeSpan.Zero,true)
    disp('I can run')
    pause(10)
    mutex.ReleaseMutex();
else
    disp('only one at a time')
end

Run this code in two different MATLAB at the same time and you will see that it works.

[Kanchibhotla Chandra Sekhar]

[~,b] = system('tasklist /fi "Imagename eq DataValidation.exe"')

This code worked. But i also tried .NET code also its not working as excepted. Anyway Thanks

[Friedrich]

I tried the .NET code in several MATLAB version and it always worked fine. What exactly did not work for you? So basically if the IF evaluates to true you run the full code of your application. In the ELSE branch do nothing so that the started application exists right away.