FreeMat is a free environment for rapid engineering and scientific prototyping and data processing. It is similar to commercial systems such as MATLAB from Mathworks, and IDL from Research Systems, but is Open Source. FreeMat is available under the GPL license.

In addition to supporting many MATLAB functions and some IDL functionality, FreeMat features a codeless interface to external C, C++, and Fortran code, further parallel distributed algorithm development (via MPI), and has plotting and 3D visualization capabilities.

An advantage of Freemat is the convenient mechanism of loading shared libraries written by other language.

Documentation:

Variables and Arrays

* struct STRUCT Structure Array Constructor
* matrix MATRIX Matrix Definitions
* cell CELL Cell Array Definitions
* global GLOBAL Global Variables
* persistent PERSISTENT Persistent Variables
* function Function Handles
* indexing INDEXING Indexing Expressions

Functions and Scripts

* nargin NARGIN Number of Input Arguments
* nargout NARGOUT Number of Output Arguments
* function FUNCTION Function Declarations
* anonymous ANONYMOUS Anonymous Functions
* keywords KEYWORDS Function Keywords
* varargin VARARGIN Variable Input Arguments
* varargout VARARGOUT Variable Output Arguments
* script SCRIPT Script Files
* special SPECIAL Special Calling Syntax

Mathematical Operators

* colon COLON Index Generation Operator
* typerules TYPERULES Type Rules for Operators
* plus PLUS Addition Operator
* minus MINUS Subtraction Operator
* dottimes DOTTIMES Element-wise Multiplication Operator
* dotrightdivide DOTRIGHTDIVIDE Element-wise Right-Division Operator
* dotleftdivide DOTLEFTDIVIDE Element-wise Left-Division Operator
* dotpower DOTPOWER Element-wise Power Operator
* comparisonops COMPARISONOPS Array Comparison Operators
* logicalops LOGICALOPS Logical Array Operators
* times TIMES Matrix Multiply Operator
* leftdivide LEFTDIVIDE Matrix Equation Solver/Divide Operator
* rightdivide RIGHTDIVIDE Matrix Equation Solver/Divide Operator
* hermitian HERMITIAN Matrix Hermitian (Conjugate Transpose) Operator
* transpose TRANSPOSE Matrix Transpose Operator
* matrixpower MATRIXPOWER Matrix Power Operator

Flow Control

* lasterr LASTERR Retrieve Last Error Message
* warning WARNING Emits a Warning Message
* error ERROR Causes an Error Condition Raised
* try TRY-CATCH Try and Catch Statement
* switch SWITCH Switch statement
* if IF-ELSEIF-ELSE Conditional Statements
* while WHILE While Loop
* for FOR For Loop
* continue CONTINUE Continue Execution In Loop
* break BREAK Exit Execution In Loop
* return RETURN Return From Function
* retall RETALL Return From All Keyboard Sessions
* keyboard KEYBOARD Initiate Interactive Debug Session