How to return the name (identifier) of the object from the call, inside a method of that class

Here is a simple example:

classdef simpleClassA

      properties
          prop1
      end

      methods
          function obj = simpleClassA(x)
              obj.prop1 = x;
              objName = whatsMyName?
              fprintf('Property prop1 of %s = %g', objName, x)
          end
      end

   end

Then, at the command prompt, I construct an object of simpleClassA by:

Gold = simpleClassA(3.0);

and I expect this to display:

"Property prop1 of Gold = 3.0"

What function is "whatsMyName?" in my constructor method that would give me this result?

When I searched the MATLAB Answers database, the closest thing to what I want is these two links below but not exactly:

How can I return a char of object variable name from a method

How to retrieve an object's name

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You need the techniques described in https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/16693-within-a-function-get-complete-command-line-calling-text-a-la-dbstack to get the text of the executing command, and then parse it to find the variable name.

Keep in mind, though, that it is legal to have multiple statements on the same line:

   set(Gold, 'prop1', 3.0); set(Silver, 'prop1', 3.0);

You might find it difficult to figure out which of the two set() you are executing.

[Yves]

dbstack seems to only give me the method/function name (i.e., in above case, "simpleClassA") instead of the name of the object instance ("Gold" or "Silver"). Here is the code I used to test the idea with dbstack:

methods
        function obj = simpleClassA(value)
            if nargin ~=0
                obj.Prop1 = value;
            end
            [S, ~] = dbstack
        end
end

The returned S was a struct with three fields:

S = 

    struct with fields:

      file: 'simpleClassA.m'
      name: 'simpleClassA.simpleClassA'
      line: 0

[Walter Roberson]

For objects that already exist, it turns out to be easier than I thought. See https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/130695-how-can-i-return-a-char-of-object-variable-name-from-a-method#answer_137878

I thought I had experimented with that and had it fail.

The difficulty with that approach is that you are trying to do this in a constructor rather than in a method after the object already exists. Your original version of the question was related to a set method(), in which case the object already exists; your edit has it happen in the constructor, and since the object does not exist yet you have to use techniques that figure out which line of code is executing and retrieve the source code of that line and figure out where you are on the source line (since there might be multiple calls to the same constructor.)

[Yves]

Thanks, @Walter. You were right; I actually don't need to know the name in the constructor, but once the constructor was called, I could use inputname(1) to capture the name of the object in any method of the class.