Programming

Classes and Objects: An Overview

You can view classes as new data types having specific behaviors defined for the class. For example, a polynomial class might redefine the addition operator (+) so that it correctly performs the operation of addition on polynomials. Operations defined to work with objects of a particular class are known as methods of that class.

You can also view classes as new items that you can treat as single entities. An example is an arrow object that MATLAB can display on graphs (perhaps composed of MATLAB line and patch objects) and that has properties like a Handle Graphics object. You can create an arrow simply by instantiating the arrow class.

You can add classes to your MATLAB environment by specifying a MATLAB structure that provides data storage for the object and creating a class directory containing M-files that operate on the object. These M-files contain the methods for the class. The class directory can also include functions that define the way various MATLAB operators, including arithmetic operations, subscript referencing, and concatenation, apply to the objects. Redefining how a built-in operator works for your class is known as overloading the operator.

Classes and Objects

Features of Object-Oriented Programming

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