Programming and Data Types

Invoking Methods on Objects

Class methods are M-file functions that take an object as one of the input arguments. The methods for a specific class must be placed in the class directory for that class (the @class_name directory). This is the first place that MATLAB looks to find a class method.

The syntax for invoking a method on an object is similar to a function call. Generally, it looks like

[out1,out2,...] = method_name(object,arg1,arg2, ...);

For example, suppose a user-defined class called polynom has a char method defined for the class. This method converts a polynom object to a character string and returns the string. This statement calls the char method on the polynom object p.

s = char(p);

Using the class function, you can confirm that the returned value s is a character string.

class(s)

ans = 

    char

s

s = 

    x^3-2*x-5

You can use the methods command to produce a list of all of the methods that are defined for a class.

Creating Objects

Private Methods