Use .NET Nested Classes and Enumerations

Instantiate Nested Class Through Reflection

In MATLAB^®, you cannot directly instantiate a nested class or enumeration, but here is how to do it through reflection using System.Reflection.

This MyClassLibrary.cs file defines InnerClass nested in OuterClass.

namespace MyClassLibrary {
  public class OuterClass {
      public class InnerClass {
          public String strmethod(String x) {
              return "from InnerClass " + x;
          }
       }
   }
}

To build and load the MyClassLibrary assembly, see Build and Load .NET Assembly for MATLAB.

Display the classes.

a.Classes

ans = 
    'MyClassLibrary.OuterClass'
    'MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+InnerClass'

The + character in class MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+InnerClass indicates that InnerClass is nested in OuterClass. You cannot directly instantiate a nested class or enumeration from a .NET assembly. To call strmethod, which is a member of Innerclass, create a MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+InnerClass object using the AssemblyHandle.GetType method in System.Reflection.

t = a.AssemblyHandle.GetType("MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+InnerClass");
sa = System.Activator.CreateInstance(t);
strmethod(sa,"hello")

ans = 
from InnerClass hello

Create Nested Constructors with or without Parameters

Suppose that you have this MyClassLibrary.cs file. To build and load the MyClassLibrary assembly, see Build and Load .NET Assembly for MATLAB. The source code is:

namespace MyClassLibrary {
    public class OuterClass {
        public class Nested {
            public Nested() {};
            public Nested(int i, double d) {};
        }
        public enum Direction { North=0, East=90, South=180, West=270};
    }
}

Create an object to represent the East enumeration.

t.GetEnumValues.Get(1)
t = asm.AssemblyHandle.GetType("MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+Direction");

ans = 

East

The Nested class is overloaded. Create an instance of the Nested class using the constructor without parameters.

t = asm.AssemblyHandle.GetType("MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+Nested");
obj = System.Activator.CreateInstance(t);

Create an instance of the Nested class using the constructor with parameters.

t = asm.AssemblyHandle.GetType("MyClassLibrary.OuterClass+Nested");
params = NET.createArray("System.Object",2);
params(1) = 1;
params(2) = 3.6;
obj = System.Activator.CreateInstance(t,params,[]);