How can I get the variable name of a child object?

I want to display the name of an object variable in its "disp" method.

I currently do the following:

methods
  function disp(this)
    objVar = inputname(1);
    disp(['Var: (' objVar ')']);
  end
end

This works great for a lone object:

>> myObj = myClass();
>> disp(myObj)
Var: (myObj)
>>

However, for a child object, it does not work:

>> myParent = myParentClass();
>> myParent.child = myClass();
>> disp(myParent.child)
Var: ()
>>

How can I get the variable name to display for a child object?

e.g.

>> myParent = myParentClass();
>> myParent.child = myClass();
>> disp(myParent.child)
Var: (myParent.child)
>>

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You cannot, at least not without some nastiness involving the program examining its own source code. "myParent.child" is not a variable name. "myParent.child" will be treated as an expression, and expressions that are not simple variable names will always come out empty for inputname() purposes.

[Wesley Allen]

That's what I was afraid of.