Deploy an array with type MATLAB Class to .NET through Data API

I have a class with properties that look something like this:

classdef MyMatlabClass

properties

name (1,1) string

innerClass (1,:) classes.MyInnerClass

end

end

I want my innerClass to look like an array in .NET (i.e. be a MyInnerClass[] when I query it from MyMatlabClass), but I'm just getting a type of MyInnerClass (not enumerable). When using a double as the property rather than a class, I am getting a double[] and I'm able to index and access it as expected. I've been following the documentation found here ( https://www.mathworks.com/help/compiler_sdk/dotnet/deploy-matlab-classes-to-dotnetapp-using-mda.html ) to do this conversion as well as the strongly typed docs here ( https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/data-type-mappings-between-net-and-strongly-typed-matlab-code.html ). I see the limitations in the latter documentation and this use case doesn't seem to be listed there so I hope I'm just missing something.

Thank you for any help,

Matthew

Answer 1

[SOUMNATH PAUL]

Hi @Matthew Trahan,

To my understanding you're trying to use MATLAB classes in a .NET environment, and you want the “innerClass" property to be treated as an array in .NET.

MATLAB does not directly support converting custom classes to .NET arrays, especially when the class contains other custom classes.

Here are some suggestions to mitigate this issue:

1. Try creating a method in your MATLAB class that returns an array of "MyInnerClass" objects, and then calling that method from your .NET code to retrieve the array. This way, you can have more control over how the data is converted between MATLAB and .NET.

classdef MyMatlabClass     

    properties 

        name (1,1) string 

        innerClass (1,:) classes.MyInnerClass 

    end 

     

    methods 

        function innerArray = getInnerClassArray(obj) 

            innerArray = obj.innerClass; 

        end 

    end 

end 

In your .NET code, you can call the “getInnerClassArray” method to obtain the array

MyMatlabClass myObject = new MyMatlabClass(); 

MyInnerClass[] innerArray = myObject.getInnerClassArray(); 

2. You can also consider implementing custom serialization methods in your MATLAB class to convert it into a format that can be easily deserialized in .NET. You would need to write methods to serialize your MATLAB class into a standard format (e.g., JSON or XML), and then deserialize it in your .NET code.

Hope it helps!

Regards,

Soumnath

[Matthew Trahan]

Thanks, Soumnath. This didn't quite work, but you did help me get on the right track. When using this approach I got the following error:

Accessing properties and methods not supported for nonscalar MATLAB objects.

Your answer, though, helped me realize that I can pass in an index to a Matlab function and return the class object at that location in the Matlab array.

With that being said, your idea in point 2 is probably much cleaner than dealing with all of this.