OOP: matlab class as a property of another class

Hi, I'm a newbie to matlab. The class individual as follows has a property named Genotype. I need this property to be another class which would have some other properties a constructor and functions. The property Genotype should correspond to the class genotype.

This can be easily achieved in other OO languages as java or c++ since they are type constrained. I don't understand how to do this with matlab. Any help would be appreciated

classdef Individual

    properties
        Genotype
    end % properties

    methods
        function 
        end % function
    end % methods

end % classdef

classdef Genotype

    properties
        X
        Y
        Z
    end % properties

    methods
        function 
        end % function
    end % methods

end % classdef

Answer 1

[Eric]

I think the following should work for setting this property from the Constructor function. The following assumes that you have created at Genotype object called Genotype_obj.

I might recommend renaming the Genotype parameter of Individual to something else to distinguish it from the class name, but I think Matlab is smart enough to know the difference.

function obj = Individual(Genotype_obj)
assert(isa(Genotype_obj,'Genotype'),'Individual Constructor Error:  Genotype_obj is of class %s, not a Genotype object.', class(Genotype_obj));
obj.Genotype = Genotype_obj;
return

The idea is to pass the object to the constructor and then check that it is the right type of object. This could also be handled in a Set() function. You might want to perform this error checking in a Set() function in addition to this code if you will ever be setting the property that way.

Good luck,

Eric

[Amidnri Udugala]

thanx eric :) i think this is what i wanted