MATLAB: Method chaining unexpected behaviour

classMATLABoop

I have noticed some unexpected behaviour with method chaining. Specifically I have a class A from which I want to call the static method to create class B:
classdef A
  methods (Static)
      function b = getB(args)
          b = B(args);
      end
  end
end
And then I want to use class B to do something e.g. use the print() method, where class B is:
classdef B
  properties
      Property1
  end
    methods
        function self = B(args)
            self.Property1 = args;
        end
        function print(self)
           fprintf(self.Property1); 
        end
    end
end
Trying
A.getB(args).Property1
succeeds.
I would thus also expect
A.getB(args).print()
to succeed, however, it gives the error:
Not enough input arguments.
Error in A.getB (line 5)
          b = B(args);
Would anyone have any suggestions on why this is so? Thanks very much in advance.

Best Answer

In general indexing into the output of a function call, what you call method chaining is not supported in MATLAB. Property access currently works on the output of a static function but function calls in general do not. You may find that your code behaves differently on different versions of MATLAB.
Try
 A.getB(args).print;  % works because it looks like property access, not recommended
 print(A.getB(args));  % will work
 obj=A.getB(args); obj.print();  % or print(obj) will also work
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