MATLAB Object-Oriented Programming

Reduce MAT-File Size for Saved Objects

In this section...

“Default Values” on page 13-5

“Dependent Properties” on page 13-5

“Transient Properties” on page 13-5

“Avoid Saving Unwanted Variables” on page 13-6

Default Values

If a property often has the same value, define a default value for that property. When the

user saves the object to a MAT-file, MATLAB does not save the value of a property if the

current value equals the default value. MATLAB saves the default value on a per class

basis to avoid saving the value for every object.

For more information on how MATLAB evaluates default value expressions, see “Property

Default Values” on page 8-18.

Dependent Properties

Use a dependent property when the property value must be calculated at run time. A

dependent property is not saved in the MAT-file when you save an object. Instances of the

class do not allocate memory to hold a value for a dependent property.

Dependent is a property attribute (see “Property Attributes” on page 8-9 for a complete

list.)

Transient Properties

MATLAB does not store the values of transient properties. Transient properties can store

data in the object temporarily as an intermediate computation step or for faster retrieval.

Use transient properties when you easily can reproduce the data at run time or when the

data represents intermediate state that can be discarded.

Reduce MAT-File Size for Saved Objects