Creating multiple instances of a class from within a class

Question

Bert 2011-10-6

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Hey all,

In a trial from type trialclass, I would like to create multiple patients of type patientClass as such:

trial = trialClass();

trial = trial.addPatient(patientID);

To achieve this, trialClass and patientClass are respectively defined as followed:

classdef trialClass    
  properties
      patient = patientClass.empty;
  end
    methods
        function obj = trialClass()
        end
        function obj = addPatient(obj, patientID)
            obj.patient = patientClass(patientID);
        end
    end
end
classdef patientClass
    properties
        patientID;
    end
      methods
          function obj = patientClass(patientID)
              obj.patientID = patientID;  
          end
      end
  end

However, when I call addPatient multiple times, the last created patient is overwritten. In other words, I end up with only one patient which has the last patientID.

Am I using the right data structure to store multiple patients in a trial?

Any suggestions are much appreciated!

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Daniel Shub 2011-10-6

If you are going to use an array of patientClass objects, you really want patientClass to handle being called with no arguments. The documentation is pretty clear about how object arrays are initialized, and requiring an argument is likely to cause problems do the road.

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Answer 1

David Young 2011-10-6

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The line

obj.patient = patientClass(patientID);

does indeed overwrite the single patient stored in trialClass.

One solution is to store an array of patients in trialClass. To implement the simplest version of this, just change the line above to

obj.patient(length(obj.patient)+1) = patientClass(patientID);

You'll then find that each call of addpatient will increase the length of the array, and you can recover all the patients' information from the property.

This simple approach can get you quite a long way, but it may not be adequate if you have large numbers of patients or you want to do complex analyses. You may find that a useful step in due course is to look at the containers.Map class, which would allow you, for example, to index the patients by their IDs.

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Bert 2011-10-6

Thank you for your reply.

Your first solution is known as an array of objects, right? I was under the impression that this construction violates the OOP-spirit. However, as I get more and more experience in MATLAB, I see this construction opted so often that I'm beginning to think I might be wrong about that assumption.

As for your second solution, that sounds like a more natural way to addressing the problem, since the patientID is the way information is linked to an individual patient. I will look into it, thanks for the pointer!

In conclusion, I would like to know if my assumption about arrays of objects not being OOP is faulty.