lakpa.net

Did you know Matlab read and execute the startup.m file located in your MATLAB_HOME directory ?
Yes of course.
But you didn't know he was executing it when you try to compile from outside a matlab environement (= from OS command line) !

Of course, the only doc you (I) can find about it is lost somewhere in the mess of the forums.

P.S. Don't say it's linked to closed source apps, I know some free/open/not-closed source apps having this same behaviour...

There is limited backspace capabilities in Matlab's fprintf when started with -nodesktop.

For example:

>> fprintf('aze\n')
aze % OK

then

>> fprintf('aze\bz\n')
azz % OK

but

>> fprintf('aze') ; fprintf('\bz\n')
azez % NOK

works only with the full desktop environment loaded:

>> fprintf('aze') ; fprintf('\bz\n')
azz % OK

I tried this from https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2007/08/01/monitoring-progress-of-a-calculation/:

% Example Code for Printing Progress to the Command Window
fprintf(1,'here''s my integer:  ');
for i=1:9
    fprintf(1,'\b%d',i); pause(.1)
end
fprintf('\n')

And the behaviour is the the same (no backspace in -nodesktop mode).