Class definition: is it necessary to define properties as struct?

Hi all,

I'm new to OOP in MATLAB. When defining properties in a class, shall I define them as constants or as a struct? For example, explicitly:

classdef myClass < handle
    properties 
        a
        b
        c
    end
    methods
        function obj = myClass(a, b, c)
          obj.a = a;
          obj.b = b;
          obj.c = c
        end
end

or as struct

classdef myClass < handle
      properties
          prop
      end
      methods
          function obj = myClass(a, b, c)
              obj.prop.a = a;
              obj.prop.b = b;
              obj.prop.c = c;
          end
end

The first way allows me to define attributes, such as private, public, etc. But if there are lots of properties, this way is too long.

The second way I will only be able to define attributes for the entire 'prop', I cannot only define prop.a as private but prop.b and prop.c as public, but the second way seems very neat.

What do you usually do and why?

Thank you!

Answer 1

[Adam]

The whole point of a class is that it is an extended and far better version of a struct (apart from performance-wise). Properties of a class are analagous to fields of a struct. Think of your class as a replacement for the struct, not something to combine with it.

With good OOP design you should never have a single class that has so many properties you have trouble typing them out anyway.

I have never yet used a struct inside a class as it defeats the purpose. The properties of a class are visible, the fields of a struct could be anything.