Implement Property Set Listener

This example shows how to define a listener for a property set event. The listener callback triggers when the value of a specific property changes. The class defined for this example uses a method for a push-button callback and a static method for the listener callback. When the push-button callback changes the value of a property, the listener executes its callback on the PreSet event.

This example defines a class (PushButton) with these design elements:

• ResultNumber – Observable property

• uicontrol pushbutton – Push-button object used to generate a new graph when its callback executes

• A listener that responds to a change in the observable property

PushButton Class Design

The PushButton class creates figure, uicontrol, axes graphics objects, and a listener object in the class constructor.

The push button's callback is a class method (named pressed). When the push button is activated, the following sequence occurs:

1. MATLAB^® executes the pressed method, which graphs a new set of data and increments the ResultNumber property.

2. Attempting to set the value of the ResultNumber property triggers the PreSet event, which executes the listener callback before setting the property value.

3. The listener callback uses the event data to obtain the handle of the callback object (an instance of the PushButton class), which then provides the handle of the axes object that is stored in its AxHandle property.

4. The listener callback updates the axes Title property, after the callback completes execution, MATLAB sets the ResultsNumber property to its new value.

classdef PushButton < handle
   properties (SetObservable)
      ResultNumber = 1
   end
   properties
      AxHandle
   end
   methods
      function buttonObj = PushButton
         myFig = figure;
         buttonObj.AxHandle = axes('Parent',myFig);
         uicontrol('Parent',myFig,...
            'Style','pushbutton',...
            'String','Plot Data',...
            'Callback',@(src,evnt)pressed(buttonObj));
         addlistener(buttonObj,'ResultNumber','PreSet',...
            @PushButton.updateTitle);
      end
   end
   methods
      function pressed(obj)
         scatter(obj.AxHandle,randn(1,20),randn(1,20),'p')
         obj.ResultNumber = obj.ResultNumber + 1;
      end
   end
   methods (Static)
      function updateTitle(~,eventData)
         h = eventData.AffectedObject;
         set(get(h.AxHandle,'Title'),'String',['Result Number: ',...
            num2str(h.ResultNumber)])
      end
   end
end

The scatter graph looks similar to this graph after three push-button clicks.

buttonObj = PushButton;