Matio is an open-source C library for reading and writing binary MATLAB
MAT files.
This library is designed for use by programs/libraries that do not have
access or do not want to rely on MATLAB's shared libraries.

Note that HDF5 version provided in Slackbuild.org is 1.8.x;
if you install 1.10.x, you can consider modified the configure option
in the build script.