======== Introduction

This directory contains a bunch of matlab scripts that help with analyzing
Avida data files.  Many of these scripts assume unix/os x (sorry).

Most of these scripts have comments to help decipher how they work, try, for example "help quick_load" from Matlab's command window.  It would probably be useful to set Matlab's path to point to this directory.

Briefly, here's what each script here does:

exportfig.m: low-level function to export a figure in camera-ready eps format
find_files.m: recursive search for files
header_lines.m: retrieve the header lines from an Avida data file
load_files.m: low-level function to load data files into an array
newfigure.m: wrapper around figure that makes figures look nice
quick_load.m: load a series of data files into a structure for analysis
quick_export.m: a wrapper around exportfig that makes figures look nice
stderr.m: calculate the standard error of an array

======== How to use quick_load

Quick_load is a Matlab script that I've found useful for dealing with the types of data files that Avida generates (gzip'ed, data from multiple trials, etc.).

In most cases, quick_load can be called with a regular expression that matches the files of interest.  For example, the following command loads all files below the current working directory that match the string "bcast_.*deme_compete".

d = quick_load('"bcast_.*deme_compete"');

NOTE THE USE OF MULTIPLE QUOTES!!!  One of the nice feature of quick_load is that it doesn't care whether the data files are gzip'ed or not.

The return value from this command looks like this:
d = 
    filenames: {1x30 cell}
    fieldnames: {3x1 cell}
    update: [30x500 double]
    avgfit: [30x500 double]
    maxfit: [30x500 double]

If all the header lines of the data file end with [\w+], then quick_load will unpack the array into fieldnames as well.
