Access Objects in Your Stateflow Chart

The objects in the Stateflow^® API represent the graphical and nongraphical objects of a Stateflow chart. For example, the API objects Stateflow.State and Stateflow.Transition represent states and transitions in a Stateflow chart. For more information, see Overview of the Stateflow API.

Find Objects in a Chart

With the find function, you can locate an API object by specifying search criteria. You can combine criteria such as:

• The type of object

• The name of a property or function

• A property name and value

For example, this command searches the Simulink.Root object and returns every Stateflow.State object with the name On:

onState = find(sfroot,"-isa","Stateflow.State",Name="On")

If more than one object meets the search criteria, find returns an array of qualifying objects. For example, if more than one chart is open, this command returns an array of Stateflow.Chart objects:

chartArray = find(sfroot,"-isa","Stateflow.Chart")

Find Objects at Specific Levels of Containment

By default, the find function finds objects at all depths of containment within an object. For example, suppose that ch is a Stateflow.Chart object that corresponds to this chart. The chart contains a parent state A with two child states, A1 and A2. For more information on this example, see Create Charts by Using a MATLAB Script.

Calling the find function to find all the states in this chart returns an array with three Stateflow.State objects:

states = find(ch,"-isa","Stateflow.State");
get(states,"Name")

ans =

  3×1 cell array

    {'A'}
    {'A1'}
    {'A2'}

To limit the maximum containment depth of a search, use the "-depth" argument as part of your search criteria. For example, to find the only Stateflow.State object at the first level of containment in ch, enter:

sA = find(ch,"-isa","Stateflow.State","-depth",1);
sA.Name

ans =

    'A'

Similarly, you can call the find function to search for states in the first level of containment in the Stateflow.State object sA. In this case, the search includes the zeroth level of containment, which is the searched object itself:

states = find(sA,"-isa","Stateflow.State","-depth",1);
get(states,"Name")

ans =

  3×1 cell array

    {'A'}
    {'A1'}
    {'A2'}

To exclude state A from the search results, call the MATLAB^® function setdiff:

childStates = setdiff(states,sA);
get(childStates,"Name")

ans =

  2×1 cell array

    {'A1'}
    {'A2'}

Navigate the Stateflow Hierarchy

After you access an API object, you can use the getChildren and getParent functions to navigate through the Stateflow hierarchy and identify the children that the object contains or the parent that contains the object.

Find Child Objects

To find the children of an API object, call the getChildren function. For instance, suppose that ch is the Stateflow.Chart object that corresponds to the chart in the previous example. Calling the getChildren function on ch returns an array that contains a Stateflow.State object and a Stateflow.Transition object.

children = getChildren(ch);
arrayfun(@class,children,UniformOutput=false)

ans =

  2×1 cell array

    {'Stateflow.State'     }
    {'Stateflow.Transition'}

The first element in the array is a Stateflow.State object that corresponds to state A.

state = children(1);
state.Name

ans =

    'A'

The second element in the array is a Stateflow.Transition object that corresponds to the default transition into state A.

children(2).Source

ans =

     []

children(2).Destination.Name

ans =

    'A'

Similarly, calling the getChildren function on the state returns an array that contains two Stateflow.State objects and two Stateflow.Transition objects.

grandchildren = getChildren(state);
arrayfun(@class,grandchildren,UniformOutput=false)

ans =

  4×1 cell array

    {'Stateflow.State'     }
    {'Stateflow.State'     }
    {'Stateflow.Transition'}
    {'Stateflow.Transition'}

The first and second elements in this array are Stateflow.State objects that correspond to the states A1 and A2.

grandchildren(1).Name

ans =

    'A1'

grandchildren(2).Name

ans =

    'A2'

The third and fourth elements in grandchildren are Stateflow.Transition objects that correspond to the transitions into states A1 and between state A1 and A2, respectively.

grandchildren(3).Source

ans =

     []

grandchildren(3).Destination.Name

ans =

    'A1'

grandchildren(4).Source.Name

ans =

    'A1'

grandchildren(4).Destination.Name

ans =

    'A2'

Find Parent Object

To find the parent of an API object, call the getParent function. For instance, suppose that sA1 is the Stateflow.State object that corresponds to state A1 in the previous example. Calling the getParent function on sA1 returns the Stateflow.State object that corresponds to state A:

parent = getParent(sA1);
parent.Name

ans =

    'A'

Similarly, calling the getParent function on parent returns the Stateflow.Chart object that corresponds to the chart:

grandparent = getParent(parent);
grandparent.Name

ans =

    'Chart'

Retrieve Recently Selected Objects

You can retrieve the most recently selected objects in a chart by calling the sfgco function. This function returns a single object or an array of objects, depending on your selection.

For instance, suppose that you select the transition from state A1 to state A2 in the previous example. Calling sfgco returns the corresponding Stateflow.Transition object:

tr = sfgco;
str = str = "Transition from "+tr.Source.Name+" to "+tr.Destination.Name

str =

    "Transition from A1 to A2"

Similarly, if you simultaneously select the three states in the chart, calling sfgco returns an array of Stateflow.State objects.

states = sfgco;
get(states,"Name")

ans =

  3×1 cell array

    {'A'}
    {'A1'}
    {'A2'}

Note

When you use sfgco to access multiple objects, the order of the objects in the array depends on the order in which you select the objects.