Resizing array of handle objects

Hi all,

I'm trying to define a handle object, which is (potentially) an array of objects, and I'm trying to define a method to successfully resize it.

classdef anArrayObject < handle

    properties (Access = public)
       prop = 0 % just a dummy property
    end

    methods
         % this initializes my array of handle objects
         function obj = anArrayObject(n)
            if nargin ~= 0
                 validateattributes(n, {'numeric'}, {'scalar', 'integer' 'positive'});

                 for i = 1:n
                    obj(i).prop = i; % Expands the object to become an array of the size n
                 end
            end
         end

         % Here I'd like to resize my array on demand, but this does not work.
         % Any way to resize this array?
         function obj = resizeMe(obj, m)
            validateattributes(m, {'numeric'}, {'scalar', 'integer' , 'positive'});
            
            if m < numel(obj)
               obj = obj(1:m);
            end

         end


    end
end

As from comments in the code: I can successfully crate the array of objects, but the resizeMe function does not do what I want.

myObjArray = anArrayObject(5);
numel(myObjArray)

ans = 5

myObjArray.resizeMe(3);
numel(myObjArray)

ans = 5

Any way to resize this handle object?

Answer 1

[Rik]

The problem is that while your object array is an array of handles, it isn't a handle variable itself. What that means is that you have an array of 5 handle objects, which you then shorten to 3:

myObjArray = anArrayObject(5)

myObjArray = 
  1×5 anArrayObject array with properties:

    prop

myObjArray.resizeMe(3)

ans = 
  1×3 anArrayObject array with properties:

    prop

Notice with the last result that the initial variable is not actually modified.

The solution I can think of would be to store the array inside the object, instead of exposing it as a normal array. You can probably overlead subsref to get most of the behavior of an array.