Set the private property of a class without using a constructor

I have a class and i just need to set the private property of the class without using constructor. Is this possible? So basically its this.

Classdef NumberClass
    properties (Access = private)
        Number;
    end
    methods
        function obj = set.Number(obj,value)
        obj.Number = value;
        end
    end
end
    

And then I tried to do this.

num = NumberClass;

num.Number = 50;

This doesnt work. I have also tried

function obj = Set(obj,value)
        obj.Number = value;
end

num.Set(50);

Here there is no error but nothing happens.

So how can I set a private property in MATLAB without using constructor. Thank you.

Answer 1

[Yash]

Hi @Govind Sankar Madhavan Pillai Ramachandran Nair

In MATLAB, if you want to set a private property in a class without using the constructor, you can create a public method within the class that allows you to set the private property. Here's how you can modify your NumberClass to achieve this:

classdef NumberClass
    properties (Access = private)
        Number;
    end
    
    methods
        function obj = NumberClass()
            % Constructor (if needed)
        end
        
        function obj = setNumber(obj, value)
            % Public method to set the private property
            obj.Number = value;
        end
        
        function value = getNumber(obj)
            % Public method to get the private property
            value = obj.Number;
        end
    end
end

With this modification, you can create an instance of the NumberClass and use the setNumber method to set the private property:

num = NumberClass;
num.setNumber(50);

You can also create a getNumber method to retrieve the value of the private property:

value = num.getNumber();

This way, you can encapsulate the access to the private property and provide controlled ways to set and get its value without using the constructor.

I hope this helps.