MATLAB: Overriding “get”-able properties.

classinheritanceMATLABoop

Let's say I have a class "A" that looks like this:
classdef A
    properties (GetAccess = public, SetAccess = protected)
      foo;
  end
  methods
      function f = get.foo(self) %#ok<MANU>

          f = randn(1, 1);
      end
  end
end
And now let's say I want to override the "foo" property in a child class that returns a uniformly random variable. In just about every other object-oriented programming language with which I am familiar, I would do the following:
classdef B < A
  properties (GetAccess = public, SetAccess = protected)
      foo;
  end
  methods
      function f = get.foo(self) %#ok<MANU>
          f = rand(1, 1);
      end
  end
end
But in MATLAB, this is not the right answer. I try this and here's the error that I see:
>> b = B 
Error using B
Cannot define property 'foo' in class 'B' because the property has already been defined in the super-class 'A'.
I have tried adding the Dependent tag to the property to no avail, also, Abstract in this case will also not work because (according to the documentation), the properties in the "concrete" classes must be static (i.e., not dynamically calculated).
This is really hindering my work to create a clean design in how some of my tools work together. Can somebody please provide some insight into how to accomplish this?
Thanks!

Best Answer

So, I thought a little about the suggestion from Daniel, and I came up with the following:
First, redefine the A class as:
classdef A
  properties (GetAccess = public, SetAccess = protected)
      foo;
  end
  methods
      function f = get.foo(self) 
          f = self.get_foo_value;
      end
  end
  methods (Access = protected)
      function v = get_foo_value(self) %#ok<MANU>

          v = randn(1, 1);
      end
  end
end
Then, rewrite the B class as:
classdef B < A
  methods (Access = protected)
      function v = get_foo_value(self) %#ok<MANU>
          v = rand(1, 1);
      end
  end
end
Then instances of both A and B behave as expected, with each access of the foo member yielding a new value from the expected distribution.
Still, this seems REALLY kludgey. I guess it really comes down to the nature of the get.* methods (which I obviously don't understand).
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