Is it possible to create a function handle to a class property set method?

Probably a stupid question and I've searched the web and Matlab help for an hour with different search terms without luck so either this is so stupid no-one would ever consider doing it or I didn't get the right search terms!

I am writing a unit test for a class and I have a property set method which uses validateattributes to check what is being set.

I want a unit test to verify that an exception is thrown when I try to set invalid data. I have tried a load of variations around the following theme, this possibly not being the most intelligent...

testCase.assertError( @()testCase.traceDemo.set.traceData( myData ),?MException );

I can test for a more specific exception, but that isn't the problem other than that the test passes because it throws a syntax exception. My problem is getting the function handle to call the set property.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

[Andy Campbell]

Hi Adam,

To answer your direct question a set method is not something that you can create an anonymous function to. However, you can test the setter by simply adding one layer to your function handle. I find that for the purposes of testing setter methods the simplest and cleanest approach is just using nested functions likes so:

classdef SetterTest < matlab.unittest.TestCase

    methods(Test)
      function testInvalidInput(testCase)

        objUnderTest = TestedObject;
        testCase.verifyError(@setScalarPropertyToMatrix, ?MException);
        function setScalarPropertyToMatrix
          objUnderTest.PropertyShouldBeScalar = eye(5);
        end

      end

    end
  end

Hope that helps!

Andy

[Adam]

Thanks Andy. That does the job very well and is still very neat.