Construct and Work with Object Arrays

Object array construction and concatenation; heterogeneous arrays

Construct object arrays, reference objects and their properties from arrays, and design class hierarchies that support the formation of heterogeneous (mixed class) arrays.

Functions

empty Create empty array of specified class

Classes

matlab.mixin.Heterogeneous Superclass for heterogeneous array formation

Topics

Build Object Arrays

Construct Object Arrays
Build object arrays in the constructor and return the array as the output argument.
Initialize Object Arrays
MATLAB^® calls the class constructor with no arguments to initialize array elements with a default object.
Initialize Arrays of Handle Objects
MATLAB uses a default object to initialize the empty elements of an array of handle objects.
Empty Arrays
Empty arrays have no elements, but are of a certain class.
Accessing Dynamic Properties in Arrays
Access dynamic properties in object arrays by referring to individual objects.

Concatenating Arrays

Concatenation Methods
You can concatenate objects into arrays.
Concatenating Objects of Different Classes
MATLAB follows specific rules when you attempt to create an array with objects of different classes.

Object Converters and Class of Arrays

Implicit Class Conversion
MATLAB can implicitly convert objects to a different class for concatenation, subscripted assignment, property validation, and argument validation.
Object Converters
You can convert an object of one class to an object of another class.
Determine Array Class
You can determine the class of an array.

Heterogeneous Arrays

Designing Heterogeneous Class Hierarchies
Heterogeneous arrays can contain objects of different class, but all objects in the array must derive from a common superclass.
Heterogeneous Array Constructors
The class of a heterogeneous object array can change as you add array elements of different classes. You must ensure that constructors return objects that are the same class as the class defining the constructor.