In trying to bring MATLAB's object-oriented capability in line with conventional object-oriented theory, some areas are easy, some are difficult, and some are like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Coercing MATLAB to supply protected visibility fits into the latter category. This is mostly because MATLAB has no organic support for protected visibility. If you apply enough pressure, you can push a square peg through a round hole. Similarly, with a reasonably small increase in complexity, the group of eight can be extended to provide protected visibility. Every class must first include a pair of private functions that support protected variables in the same way get and set support public variables. Next, the child and its parents must exchange a set of function handles corresponding to the set of member functions with protected visibility. The best time to execute this exchange occurs during construction. Finally, the child's member functions must be able to locate and use the appropriate function handles.

Chapter Contents:

• 23.1 How Protected Is Different from Other Visibilities
• 23.2 Class Elements for Protected
• 23.2.1 Protected Functions and Advanced Function Handle Techniques
• 23.2.2 Passing Protected Handles from Parent to Child
• 23.2.3 Accessing and Mutating Protected Variables
• 23.2.4 Calling Protected Functions
• 23.3 Test Drive
• 23.4 Summary
• 23.5 Independent Investigations

Inspec keywords: mathematics computing; object-oriented programming

Other keywords: MATLAB; protected member variables; protected visibility; protected member functions

Subjects: Mathematics computing; Object-oriented programming