There is only one reason you would need to be reading this file, and that would be if you want to compile mexnc with netcdf-4 support. If you don't need netcdf-4 support, then stop reading this and don't give the contents of this directory a second thought. If you need to compile mexnc, do the following. On unix, you need to check the mexopts.{release}.sh file that is appropriate for you release. On R2008b, this would be mexopts.R2008b.sh. Go down to the bottom of the file and check that the variables are set appropriately (it should be pretty clear what to change). When you are done, then you can go ahead and build mexnc. The form of the make command (done from the command prompt) depends on your version of matlab as shown below. make # R2008b only make R2008a # R2008a only make R2007b # R2007b only make R2007a # R2007a only make R2006b # R2006b only make R2006a # R2006a only make R14sp3 # R14sp3 only On windows, start up matlab, type either >> win32_make_mexnc or >> win64_make_mexnc