Matlab external scripts can not escape shell

Hi! I am trying to call a script or executing a command via system in bash. However, it seems Matlab does not let the command escape it's shell session(?)?

What I am trying to do is running something like

xelatex --shell-escape main.tex

since I have multiple tikz-figures to be compiled. However latex stucks and complains that shell escape was not working. running the exact same command in Terminal works (I made sure to provide the path to xelatex). I also tried to provide a shell script, with this command, hoping that would change something, but it doesn't.

#!/bin/bash

/Library/TeX/texbin/xelatex --shell-escape main.tex

This script works when executed via terminal, but not using system(...) or !... Do you have any idea how to get this done? Or is this a inherent restriction?

[Jan]

Please do not rephrase what you do and what you observe. It is not useful to know, that you are "running something like". Post the code and a complete copy of the error message instead.

[Lucas-Raphael Müller]

Hm, I thought posting latex errors here was not useful, but here you go:

if ispc
    executeLatex = 'xelatex --shell-escape main.tex';
elseif isunix
    executeLatex = '/Library/TeX/texbin/xelatex --shell-escape  main.tex';
end

response = system(executeLatex);

This is the output

This is XeTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-0.99992 (TeX Live 2015) (preloaded format=xelatex)
 \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
(./main.tex
LaTeX2e <2016/03/31>
Babel <3.9q> and hyphenation patterns for 81 language(s) loaded.
(/usr/local/texlive/2015/texmf-dist/tex/latex/koma-script/scrartcl.cls
Document Class: scrartcl 2015/10/03 v3.19a KOMA-Script document class (article)

...

(./data/patientInformation.tex) (./main.toc) [1]
(./data/uncertaintyParameters.tex) [2] (./data/isoSlicePlane1_nominal.tex
! Package tikz Warning: The key 'up to date check=md5' is impossible, there is 
no macro to compute MD5. Falling back to 'up to date check=diff'.
===== 'mode=convert with system call': Invoking 'xelatex -shell-escape -halt-on
-error -interaction=batchmode -jobname "data/figures/main-figure0" "\def\tikzex
ternalrealjob{main}\input{main}"' ========
sh: xelatex: command not found

! Package tikz Error: Sorry, the system call 'xelatex -shell-escape -halt-on-er
ror -interaction=batchmode -jobname "data/figures/main-figure0" "\def\tikzexter
nalrealjob{main}\input{main}"' did NOT result in a usable output file 'data/fig
ures/main-figure0' (expected one of .pdf:.jpg:.jpeg:.png:.bmp:). Please verify 
that you have enabled system calls. For pdflatex, this is 'pdflatex -shell-esca
pe'. Sometimes it is also named 'write 18' or something like that. Or maybe the
 command simply failed? Error messages can be found in 'data/figures/main-figur
e0.log'. If you continue now, I'll try to typeset the picture.

See the tikz package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.1121 \end{tikzpicture}
                        %
?

As I said compiling in terminal with same command works fine.