How to avoid the dot operator when accessing property inside class method

I have a class that contains method. When I access one of properties, I need to use dot operator as follows:

classdef Robot < handle
    properties 
        x
    end
    function move(obj)
        obj.x = obj.x + 1; % how to remove obj.
    end
end

As you can see, using obj. with equation that contains alot of properites is not readable. How to avoid this issue as the case in C++. I think it should be default to refer to properties.

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

You don't, at least not the way you're asking.

Suppose you had a different method of your Robot class:

function y = battle(a, b)

end

To what would the "naked" variable x refer in that method?

• Should it always refer to the x property of the object stored in a? That would throw an error if you called the method like battle(1, RobotInstance) since in that case a would not be a Robot.
• Should it always refer to the x property of the object stored in b? Same problem just with battle(RobotInstance, 1).
• But let's say the battle method could only be called with two Robot instances. To what should x refer, a.x or b.x?

One way to avoid having to reference the property repeatedly would be to reference the property once and store its value in a local variable.

function y = battle(a, b)
% Let's assume both a and b are instances of the Robot class.
%
% % If they were numbers we could call the constructor here to
% turn them into Robot objects before trying to use them.
ax = a.x;
bx = b.x;
% Now work with ax and bx instead of a.x and b.x.
end