Call method for object arrays in Matlab

Question

I have an array of objects (of user-defined class), and I want to call a method for all of them. The method represents a processing step for several data channels, tied with treir own objects.

I see two solutions:

1) Writing a for-loop to call method for every object in a vector:

for i=1:numel(objArray)
    objArray(i).step;
end

2) Adding length check inside class method, like this:

function step(obj) 
    if numel(obj)>1
        for i=1:numel(obj)
            step(obj(i));
        end
        return;
    end
    % some processing ...
end

But I don't like both solutions, because I should add the same code for every method call in a first case or for every method definition in a second case. Is there a better way to do it?

What is not clear in it? I have 1xN vector of objects and I want to call methods simply by objArray.step instead of for-loops. — Sairus
– Sairus, Commented May 31, 2017 at 10:23

Sam Roberts · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-01 09:33:44Z

2

The typical pattern to follow would be something like:

function step(objArray)
    for i = 1:numel(objArray)
        % some processing on objArray(i)
    end
end

No need for that weird if in your question that recursively calls the method on a single element - just do the processing directly on each element.

answered Jun 1, 2017 at 9:33

Sam Roberts

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3 Comments

Sairus Over a year ago

Thank you, it is much simpler! I think I should write public methods with this pattern, which vectorize other private methods for a single object. Though in the case of get methods this will not work that simple for objects properties.

Sam Roberts Over a year ago

You're right that a get method is always called on the first element of an array of objects. But you can always use values = [objArray.value]: this will call the get method for each element of the object array, get the property value, and collect them into an array.

Sairus Over a year ago

Yes, also I think to maintain the original dimension of object vector and add out = reshape(out, size(objArray));

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