Course Overview

This Object-Oriented MATLAB Programming training course teaches students how to create high-quality, maintainable MATLAB programs using the modern object-oriented programming paradigm, replacing the “spaghetti code” too commonly found in beginner-level MATLAB scripts. Students are led from object-oriented design basics to advanced features such as access attributes, encapsulation, property value validations, getter and setter methods, event notification and handling, backward compatibility across MATLAB releases, and run-time performance considerations.

Note: This course can be condensed to a half-day with fewer examples and less hands-on practice. We strongly recommend the full-day version, if possible.

Key Learning Areas

  • Master the fundamentals of object-oriented coding
  • Write MATLAB classes
  • Customize MATLAB class blocks using attributes
  • Understand the differences between, and uses of, handle and value classes
  • Write reusable, maintainable MATLAB classes
  • Use class inheritance to override objects’ functionality and behavior
  • Use class constructs to notify run-time events to subscribed callback listeners
  • Use property validators and accessor methods
  • Explore MATLAB's hidden object-oriented features
  • Understand MATLAB release compatibility and run-time performance tradeoffs

Course Outline

Introduction to MATLAB OOP

  • Comparing paradigms: OOP vs. procedural programming
  • Importance of OOP for development and maintainability
  • OOP use in MATLAB code
  • Benefits and drawbacks of using MATLAB OOP
  • MATLAB OOP’s historic evolution and future outlook

Programming Object-Oriented MATLAB

  • Components of MATLAB OOP
  • The format of a MATLAB class
  • Offline & run-time inspection of class components
  • Constructor and destructor methods
  • Handle vs. value classes
  • Class packages, folders, files, and attributes
  • Handling accessibility attributes
  • Bypassing property restrictions (carefully!)
  • Dependent (on-the-fly) properties
  • Specifying and validating property types and values
  • Setter and getter methods for property values

Advanced Object-Oriented MATLAB

  • Copying objects (deep/shallow copy)
  • Class inheritance
  • Overloading class components
  • Using static classes
  • Object pooling
  • The singleton design pattern
  • Notifying and listening to events
  • Using enumerated values
  • MATLAB releases compatibility considerations
  • Run-time performance aspects and tradeoffs

Prerequisites

  • Attendees should have taken From MATLAB Scripts to Complete Programs course or have equivalent knowledge
  • Students should already be comfortable using the MATLAB environment and have some basic programming experience
  • No prior object-oriented experience is assumed or required for this course. However, familiarity with object-oriented constructs in other programming environments (e.g., C#, C++, Java, or Python) would be helpful.