@docfiller<EOL>def loadmat(file_name, mdict=None, appendmat=True, **kwargs):
variable_names = kwargs.pop('<STR_LIT>', None)<EOL>MR = mat_reader_factory(file_name, appendmat, **kwargs)<EOL>matfile_dict = MR.get_variables(variable_names)<EOL>if mdict is not None:<EOL><INDENT>mdict.update(matfile_dict)<EOL><DEDENT>else:<EOL><INDENT>mdict = matfile_dict<EOL><DEDENT>if isinstance(file_name, string_types):<EOL><INDENT>MR.mat_stream.close()<EOL><DEDENT>return mdict<EOL>
Load MATLAB file

Parameters
----------
file_name : str
   Name of the mat file (do not need .mat extension if
   appendmat==True) Can also pass open file-like object.
m_dict : dict, optional
    Dictionary in which to insert matfile variables.
appendmat : bool, optional
   True to append the .mat extension to the end of the given
   filename, if not already present.
byte_order : str or None, optional
   None by default, implying byte order guessed from mat
   file. Otherwise can be one of ('native', '=', 'little', '<',
   'BIG', '>').
mat_dtype : bool, optional
   If True, return arrays in same dtype as would be loaded into
   MATLAB (instead of the dtype with which they are saved).
squeeze_me : bool, optional
   Whether to squeeze unit matrix dimensions or not.
chars_as_strings : bool, optional
   Whether to convert char arrays to string arrays.
matlab_compatible : bool, optional
   Returns matrices as would be loaded by MATLAB (implies
   squeeze_me=False, chars_as_strings=False, mat_dtype=True,
   struct_as_record=True).
struct_as_record : bool, optional
   Whether to load MATLAB structs as numpy record arrays, or as
   old-style numpy arrays with dtype=object.  Setting this flag to
   False replicates the behavior of scipy version 0.7.x (returning
   numpy object arrays).  The default setting is True, because it
   allows easier round-trip load and save of MATLAB files.
verify_compressed_data_integrity : bool, optional
    Whether the length of compressed sequences in the MATLAB file
    should be checked, to ensure that they are not longer than we expect.
    It is advisable to enable this (the default) because overlong
    compressed sequences in MATLAB files generally indicate that the
    files have experienced some sort of corruption.
variable_names : None or sequence
    If None (the default) - read all variables in file. Otherwise
    `variable_names` should be a sequence of strings, giving names of the
    matlab variables to read from the file.  The reader will skip any
    variable with a name not in this sequence, possibly saving some read
    processing.

Returns
-------
mat_dict : dict
   dictionary with variable names as keys, and loaded matrices as
   values

Notes
-----
v4 (Level 1.0), v6 and v7 to 7.2 matfiles are supported.

You will need an HDF5 python library to read matlab 7.3 format mat
files.  Because scipy does not supply one, we do not implement the
HDF5 / 7.3 interface here.