MATLAB Function Reference

meta.class - `meta.class` class describes MATLAB^® classes

Description

The meta.class class contains information about MATLAB classes. The read/write properties of the meta.class class correspond to class attributes and are set only from within class definitions on the classdef line. You can query the read–only properties of the meta.class object to obtain information that is specified syntactically by the class (for example, to obtain the name of the class).

You can construct a meta.class object from an instance of a class or using the class name:

metaclass — returns a meta.class object representing the object passed as an argument.
?classname — returns a meta.class object representing the named class.
fromName — static method returns a meta.class object representing the named class.

For example, the metaclass function returns the meta.class object representing myclass.

ob = myclass;
obmeta = metaclass(ob);
obmeta.Name
ans =
myclass

You can use the class name to obtain the meta.class object:

obmeta = ?myclass;

You can also use the fromName static method:

obmeta = meta.class.fromName('myclass');

Properties

Property	Purpose
`ConstructOnLoad` attribute, default = `false`	If `true`, the class constructor is called automatically when loading an object from a MAT-file. Therefore, the construction must be implemented so that calling it with no arguments does not produce an error. See Saving and Loading Objects
`ContainingPackage` read only	A `meta.package` object describing the package within which this class is contained, or an empty object if this class is not in a package.
`Description` read only	Currently not used
`DetailedDescription` read only	Currently not used
`Events` read only	A cell array of `meta.event` objects describing each event defined by this class, including all inherited events.
`Hidden` attribute, default = `false`	If set to `true`, the class does not appear in the output of MATLAB commands or tools that display class names.
`InferiorClasses` attribute, default = `{}`	A cell array of `meta.class` objects defining the precedence of classes represented by the list as inferior to this class. See Specifying Class Precedence
`Methods` read only	A cell array of `meta.method` objects describing each method defined by this class, including all inherited public and protected methods.
`Name` read only	Name of the class associated with this `meta.class` object (`char` array)
`Properties` read only	A cell array of `meta.property` objects describing each property defined by this class, including all inherited public and protected properties.
`Sealed` attribute, default = `false`	If `true`, the class can be not be specialized with subclasses.
`SuperClasses` read only	A cell array of `meta.class` objects describing each base class from which this class is derived.

Methods

Method	Purpose
`fevalStatic`	Evaluate a static method given the name of the static method and its argument list.
`fromName`	Returns the `meta.class` object associated with the specified class name.
`getConstant`	Returns the value of the specified constant property.
`tf = eq(cls)`	Equality function (`a == b`). Use to test if two variables refer to equal classed (classes that contain exactly the same list of elements).
`tf = ne(cls)`	Not equal function (`a ~= b`). Use to test if two variables refer to different meta–classes.
`tf = lt(clsa,clsb)`	Less than function (`clsa < clsb`). Use to determine if `clsa` is a strict subclass of `clsb` (i.e., `clsb < clsb` is `false`).
`tf = le(clsa,clsb)`	Less than or equal to function (`clsa <= clsb`). Use to determine if `clsa` is a subclass of `clsb`.
`tf = gt(clsa,clsb)`	Greater than function (`clsb > clsa`). Use to determine if `clsb` is a strict superclass of `clsa` (i.e., `clsb > clsb` is `false`).
`tf = ge(clsa,clsb)`	Greater than or equal to function (`clsb >= clsa`). Use to determine if `clsb` is a superclass of `clsa`.

meta.class - meta.class class describes MATLAB® classes

Description

Properties

Methods

See Also

meta.class - `meta.class` class describes MATLAB^® classes