How to find parent uifigure for a child several layers down

I want to call uiconfirm from a uilistbox's ValueChangedFcn. uiconfirm requires a uifigure as its first argument, but the uilistbox is several layers down from the parent uifigure. These layers consist of custom components (built from matlab.ui.componentcontainer.ComponentContainer) and uigridlayouts. Is there a builtin way to find the handle to the parent uifigure? I want to avoid having to pass the figure handle down through each layer. I'm sure that this question has been asked and answered before, but I've been unable to find the solution

Thanks times a million,

Bill

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

Use ancestor.

>> f = uifigure;
>> h = uipanel('parent', f);
>> f2 = ancestor(h, 'matlab.ui.Figure');
>> f == f2

ans =

  logical

   1

[Otis]

Awesome!! Just what I was looking for. I think I've seen this before, so I don't know why it didn't come up in any of my searches.

Thanks times mutiple millions :)

Bill

Answer 2

[dpb]

" I want to avoid having to pass the figure handle down through each layer."

In an app, data are all global anyway, so save the uifigure handle on startup/creation and use the saved variable value/handle instead.

[Otis]

Are you sure about this? Besides, I'd prefer to avoid the use of global variables. Steven's answer above is just what I need. Anyway ... Thanks for taking the time to answer this!

Bill

[dpb]

The app struct is global, yes...otherwise you wouldn't have access to all its members from any function.

@Steven Lord's solution is better coding practice, though, agreed -- I've never run across ancestor in 30+ years w/ MATLAB, either...as you say, it certainly is not well cross-linked into the documentation to make one aware of it. It isn't in the "See Also" list with findobj although findobj is linked to in ancestor. It is in the "Functions" list for findobj although didn't make the hit parade...

[Otis]

Got it ... Thanks!