@wpeaton: you're absolved :-)

I didn't know, or realize, that Matlab compresses .mat files by default. That may not have always been the case. In the script library or collection (started in the late nineties) at my work we have old .m-files and function calling 'load' explicitly with the '-v7' flag; I suppose that hasn't been there for nothing. (Saving files on network drives goes a lot faster if they're compressed on the fly.)

BTW, AFAIK Octave's '-v7' flag invokes compression by default - provided Octave was built with zlib library support. That isn't stated as such in the help text, though.  .mat files saved with  -v6' and '-v7' differ quite a bit in size.

updating title to reflect the confirmed incompatibility. this would require modification to libinterp/corefcn/load-save.cc, so not just a simple m-file change, and we'd need to confirm whether using it would actually change any default compression behavior for all of the other possible uses of save.

the possibility of adding a matching -compression or -compress option as a -zip alias is still a simple possibility, but I'm not use adding it really adds any particular value.

updating summary and category fields. this seems like a fairly straightforward compatibility change, but is this actually a matlab compatible change?

the online docs for current or `v7 era' matlab make no mention of a '-compress' option.  current matlab (>2019) online help shows a '-nocompression' option that only applies with to the v7 or 7.3 options (where matlab had introduced default compression). 'help save' in matlab tells you the option is valid for 'version 7 and above'.  When those v7/7.3 versions were new and before the '-nocompression' option was introduced, the help told you to save as v6 to disable compression.

if i try to use the '-compress' option in matlab 2023b:

>> a = magic (4);

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v7')

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v7','-nocompression')

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v7','-nocompress')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v7','-compress')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a', '-nocompression')

>> save ('test.dat', 'a', '-nocompress')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a', '-compress')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v6','-nocompression')
Error using save
Nocompression not supported for this MAT-file version. Use MAT-file
v7(default) or v7.3 instead.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v6','-nocompress')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v6','-compression')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

>> save ('test.dat', 'a','-v6','-compress')
Error using save
Unknown command option.

So whether trying on the v7 formats, or default formats, the only supported option is -nocompression, and that is only supported on v7/7.3. any other option produces an error.

So, adding -compress isn't something that would need to be done for any compatibility concern. 


in Octave 8.3.0, i did notice the -nocompression option is unrecognized for -v7

>> a = magic(4)
a =

   16    2    3   13
    5   11   10    8
    9    7    6   12
    4   14   15    1

>> save('testdat.dat', 'a')
>> save('testdat.dat', 'a', '-v7')
>> save('testdat.dat', 'a', '-v7', '-nocompression')
error: save: Unrecognized option '-nocompression'

which would be nice to add for compatibility, but that's a separate issue.  Is our v7 uncompressed by default? And is that a known incompatibility?  if so, we could add '-nocompression' as a 'do nothing' option that is just there for code compatibility.

For compression
  Octave uses '-z' or '-zip' options
  MATLAB uses '-compress' or '-nocompress' options

presumably Octave uses no compression by default. MATLAB compress options only apply to '-V7' or '-V7.3' formats.

I did a test where I save'd a file in Octave with '-zip':

====== begin script ==================
A = eye(5,5);
save('test.mat', A, '-V7', '-zip');
====== end script ==================

I asked a friend who has MATLAB to open and they were able to successfully open the file. This seems to indicate that MATLAB also uses gzip compression.

So my request is this: can Octave save function be modified to include 'compress' and '-nocompress' options to improve compatibility?