Concatenating Objects of Different Classes

Basic Knowledge

The material presented in this section builds on an understanding of the information presented in the following sections.

• Class Precedence

• Class Attributes

• Creating Object Arrays

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MATLAB Concatenation Rules

MATLAB follows these rules for concatenating objects:

• MATLAB always converts all objects to the dominant class.

• User-defined classes take precedence over built-in classes like double.

• If there is no defined dominance relationship between any two objects, then the left-most object dominates (see Class Precedence).

• MATLAB does not convert objects to a common superclass unless those objects derive from a member of a heterogeneous hierarchy. See matlab.mixin.Heterogeneous for more information.

The following sections describe these rules in more detail. See Combining Unlike Classes for related information.

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Concatenating Objects

Concatenation combines objects into arrays:

ary = [obj1,obj2,obj3,...,objn]; % size of ary is 1-by-n
ary = [obj1;obj2;obj3;...;objn]; % size of ary is n-by-1

The class of the resulting array, ary, is the same as the class of the objects being concatenated. Concatenating unlike objects is possible if MATLAB can convert objects to the dominant class. MATLAB attempts to convert unlike objects by:

• Calling the inferior object's converter method, if one exists (see Implementing Converter Methods for an example).

• Passing an inferior object to the dominant class constructor to create an object of the dominant class.

If conversion of the inferior objects is successful, MATLAB returns an array that is of the dominant class. If conversion is not possible, MATLAB returns an error.

Modifying Default Concatenation

Classes can control how concatenation of its instances works by overloading horzcat, vertcat, cat. See Redefining Concatenation for Your Class for more information.

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Converting to the Dominant Class

MATLAB first attempts to find converter methods for objects of the inferior classes. If your class design requires object conversion, implement methods for this purpose. See Converting Objects to Another Class for general information on converter methods.

Calling the Dominant-Class Constructor

When MATLAB calls the dominant class constructor to convert an object of an inferior class to the dominant class, the inferior object is passed to the constructor as an argument. If the class design enables the dominant class constructor to accept objects of inferior classes as input arguments, then concatenation is possible without implementing a separate converter method.

In cases where the constructor simply assigns this argument to a property, the result is an object of the dominant class with an object of an inferior class stored in a property. If this is not a desired result, then ensure that class constructors include adequate error checking.

For example, consider the class ColorClass and two subclasses, RGBColor and HSVColor:

classdef ColorClass
   properties
      Color
   end
end

The class RGBColor inherits the Color property from ColorClass. RGBColor stores a color value defined as a three-element vector of red, green, and blue (RGB) values. The constructor does not restrict the value of the input argument. It assigns this value directly to the Color property.

classdef RGBColor < ColorClass
% Class to contain RGB color specification
   methods
      function obj = RGBColor(rgb)
         if nargin > 0
               obj.Color = rgb;
        end
      end
   end 
end

The class HSVColor also inherits the Color property from ColorClass. HSVColor stores a color value defined as a three-element vector of hue, saturation, brightness value (HSV) values.

classdef HSVColor < ColorClass
% Class to contain HSV color specification
   methods
      function obj = HSVColor(hsv)
         if nargin > 0
            obj.Color = hsv;
         end
      end
   end 
end

Create an instance of each class and concatenate them into an array. The RGBColor object is dominant because it is the left most object and neither class defines a dominance relationship:

crgb = RGBColor([1 0 0]);
chsv = HSVColor([0 1 1]);
ary = [crgb,chsv];

class(ary)

ans =

RGBColor

MATLAB can combine these different objects into an array because it can pass the inferior object of class HSVColor to the constructor of the dominant class. However, notice that the Color property of the second RGBColor object in the array actually contains an HSVColor object, not an RGB color specification:

ary(2).Color

ans = 

  HSVColor

  Properties:
    Color: [0 1 1]

Avoid this undesirable behavior by:

• Implementing converter methods

• Performing argument checking in class constructors before assigning values to properties

The next section shows updates to these classes.

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Implementing Converter Methods

Here is the ColorClass class with converter methods for RGBColor and HSVColor objects:

classdef ColorClass
   properties
      Color
   end
   methods
      function rgbObj = RGBColor(obj)
      % Convert HSVColor object to RGBColor object
         if strcmp(class(obj),'HSVColor')
            rgbObj = RGBColor(hsv2rgb(obj.Color));
         end
      end
      function hsvObj = HSVColor(obj)
      % Convert RGBColor object to HSVColor object
         if strcmp(class(obj),'RGBColor')
            hsvObj = HSVColor(rgb2hsv(obj.Color));
         end
      end
   end
end

Create an array of RGBColor and HSVColor objects with the revised superclass:

crgb = RGBColor([1 0 0]);
chsv = HSVColor([0 1 1]);
ary = [crgb,chsv];
class(ary)

ans =

RGBColor

MATLAB calls the converter method for the HSVColor object, which it inherits from the superclass. The second array element is now an RGBColor object with an RGB color specification assigned to the Color property:

 ary(2)

ans = 

  RGBColor

  Properties:
    Color: [1 0 0]
ary(2).Color

ans =

     1     0     0

If the left-most object is of class HSVColor, the array ary is also of class HSVColor, and MATLAB converts the Color property data to HSV color specification.

ary = [chsv crgb]
ary = 

  1x2 HSVColor

  Properties:
    Color
ary(2).Color

ans =

     0     1     1

Defining a converter method in the superclass and adding better argument checking in the subclass constructors produces more predicable results. Here is the RGBColor class constructor with argument checking:

classdef RGBColor < ColorClass2
   methods
      function obj = RGBColor(rgb)
         if nargin == 0
            rgb = [0 0 0];
         else
            if ~(strcmp(class(rgb),'double')...
                  && size(rgb,2) == 3 && max(rgb) <= 1 && min(rgb) >= 0)
               error('Specify color as RGB values')
            end
         end
         obj.Color = rgb;
      end
   end
end

Your applications might require additional error checking and other coding techniques. The classes in these examples are designed only to demonstrate concepts.

See Class Constructor Methods for more information on writing class constructors.

See Building on Other Classes for more information on inheritance.

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Creating Object Arrays

Events — Sending and Responding to Messages

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