MATLAB_RETURN is a directory of MATLAB programs which illustrate the puzzling cost of the MATLAB RETURN statement.
A MATLAB M-file may contain several functions. It is enough to simply use the "function" statement itself to indicate the beginning of each function in such a file, as follows:
function a ( )
...body of function
function b ( )
...body of function
function c ( )
...body of function
The MATLAB "end" statement may be used to indicate the termination of a function, as well as that of "if" and "for" statements:
function a ( )
...body of function
end
function b ( )
...body of function
end
function c ( )
...body of function
end
Using the "end" statement in this way would seem to be merely a fussy
formality, or, depending on how you think, a means of improving program
readability.
The MATLAB "return" statement may be used at any point in a function to indicate that execution should return to the calling function. A function may have several return statements. Reaching the end of the function definition (end of file, or the beginning of a new function) will also result in an implicit return to the calling function. We can use an explicit return as an additional marker in our file:
function a ( )
...body of function
return
end
function b ( )
...body of function
return
end
function c ( )
...body of function
return
end
Using the "return" statement is again unnecessary, but would seem to me
to me a more careful way of indicating that the function's calculations
have been completed.
Call the three skeleton files above "version1", "version2" and "version3". What will you think when I tell you that versions 1 and 2 run in 2 seconds, and version three takes 22 seconds? (The real problem I wanted to run is 100 times bigger, and there the discrepancy is far worse.)
The online documentation for the RETURN statement simply states that it causes return to the calling function, and nowhere suggests that there is a significant overhead incurred when calling RETURN explicitly. Nor is there any explanation for a difference between an implicit and explicit RETURN.
Since absolutely anything can be "explained" after the fact, it's easy to suppose that the explicit RETURN somehow "exits the entire file", causing all the file memory to be wiped clean, and requiring a reinitialization on reentry, whereas the implicit RETURN from, say, function b, would smoothly jump back to function a (assuming a called b) without exiting the file and its memory. But that's just my vague attempt at a plausible explanation, and there's no reason to believe it.
What bothers me is that I can't see WHY the return has to cost so much; and I've already written a heap of MATLAB M-files with multiple functions that politely return/end all over the place. So now I'm stuck with the worry of going back and cleaning them up.
By the way, it is a peculiarity of MATLAB that:
The computer code and data files described and made available on this web page are distributed under the GNU LGPL license.
FEYNMAN_KAC_2D, a MATLAB program which demonstrates the use of the Feynman-Kac algorithm to solve Poisson's equation in a 2D ellipse by averaging stochastic paths to the boundary.
MATLAB, MATLAB programs which illustrate the use of the MATLAB programming language;
EXAMPLE is an extremely simplified program which simply calls two versions of the same function many times. One version has a return statement and one doesn't.
VERSION1 uses no RETURN and no END statements and runs in 1.9 seconds.
VERSION2 uses END, but no RETURN statements and runs in 1.9 seconds.
VERSION3 uses RETURN and END statements and runs in 22 seconds.
You can go up one level to the MATLAB source codes.