Speeding up deletion of an object containing an array of handle objects

I am developing a (handle) class that acts as a container for an array of (also handle) objects. I'm doing this so I can use the data in those objects for further analysis.

When deleting ContainerObj, MATLAB seems to take quite a long time. For example, when I'm loading 160,000 dataObjects, calling clear(ContainerObj) can take up to 30 seconds. My question is: is there a way to speed up deletion of these objects?

I have read the documentation on deleting cyclical object references, but I don't think that that applies here because the dataObjects are not linked to each other.

Example code:

classdef ContainerObj < handle

     properties
        Data = {};
     end

     methods

        function addObject(obj)
            obj.Data{end + 1} = dataObject;
        end

     end

end

classdef dataObject< handle

     ...

end

[Image Analyst]

How long does it take if you use delete() instead of clear()?

This is not a static method, so have you instantiated 160,000 instances of the class in an array of those classes? When you say clear(ContainerObj) are you trying to erase the definition of the class? Or are you trying to clear the instantiated object(s) or object array?

[JWTay]

I apologize for not getting back to you earlier.

Let me clarify with a quick example:

%Initialize the container object
dataset = ContainerObj;

%Add some data
for ii = 1:10000
   dataset.addObject = dataObject;
end

%Do some analysis.
...

%We're done, clean up the workspace
clear(dataset)