MATLAB Object-Oriented Programming

How to Define Handle-Compatible Classes

In this section...

“What Is Handle Compatibility?” on page 12-41

“Subclassing Handle-Compatible Classes” on page 12-43

What Is Handle Compatibility?

A class is handle compatible if:

• It is a handle class


• Its HandleCompatible attribute is set to true

The HandleCompatible class attribute identifies classes that you can combine with

handle classes when specifying a set of superclasses.

Handle compatibility provides greater flexibility when defining abstract superclasses. For

example, when using superclasses that support both handle and value subclasses, handle

compatibility removes the need to define both a handle version and a nonhandle version

of a class.

A Handle Compatible Class

The Utility class is useful to both handle and value subclasses. In this example, the

Utility class defines a method to reset property values to the default values defined in

the respective class definition:

classdef (HandleCompatible) Utility

methods

function obj = resetDefaults(obj)

mc = metaclass(obj);

mp = mc.PropertyList;

for k=1:length(mp)

if mp(k).HasDefault && ~strcmp(mp(k).SetAccess,'private')

obj.(mp(k).Name) = mp(k).DefaultValue;

end

end

end

end

end

How to Build on Other Classes