How to set some custom variables on Matlab startup

Question

I would like to set some initial variables (like format compact and the current directory) automatically on each startup of Matlab.
How can I do that?

Answer 1

Create a startup.m file in the directory that you launch matlab from.

Answer 2

Create a startup.m script file containing the commands to set up the state that you want. Next, from inside MATLAB, run the command

>> userpath

This will give you a list of one or more user-specific directories (depending on what OS you are using); put your startup.m in any of those directories and it will be found whenever you start MATLAB (startup.m is also found if it is in the directory from which MATLAB is started, but the technique above allows you to start MATLAB from an arbitrary directory and still have startup.m get run).