MATLAB: Fill object properties from another class object

Question

Hi there,

I load an object of a class 'xdTest' from an API and would like to add to this object one more property.

I first thought of creating a class 'Test' with my extra property inheriting the subclass 'xdTest' properties like :

classdef Test < xdTest
  properties
    myExtraProp
  end
end

But the thing is that I can't manage to create a Test object and fill its inherited properties with an existing xdTest object.

Any idea of a way to fill or merge its inherited properties without having to do it for every property in a constructor method?

Thank you so much!

Answer 1

Assuming that the base class does not have a copy constructor (a constructor that simply takes another object of the base class) I think the only way is indeed to copy all the properties. And that's assuming that the properties have public or protected set access.

You can automate that though:

classdef Test < xdTest
   properties
      myExtraProp
   end
   methods
      function this = Test(xdTestobj, extraprop)
         mco = ?xdTest;
         for prop = mco.PropertyList'
            if ismember(prop.SetAccess, {'public', 'protected'})
               this.(prop.Name) = xdTestobj(prop.Name);
            else
               warning('could not copy property %s', prop.Name);
            end
         end
         this.myExtraProp = extraprop;
      end
   end
end