How do I create enumerated types in MATLAB?

Question

Are there enumerated types in MATLAB? If not, what are the alternatives?

Answer 1

You could also use Java enum classes from your Matlab code. Define them in Java and put them on your Matlab's javaclasspath.

// Java class definition
package test;
public enum ColorEnum {
    RED, GREEN, BLUE
}

You can reference them by name in M-code.

mycolor = test.ColorEnum.RED
if mycolor == test.ColorEnum.RED
    disp('got red');
else
    disp('got other color');
end

% Use ordinal() to get a primitive you can use in a switch statement
switch mycolor.ordinal
    case test.ColorEnum.BLUE.ordinal
        disp('blue');
    otherwise
        disp(sprintf('other color: %s', char(mycolor.toString())))
end

It won't catch comparisons to other types, though. And comparison to string has an odd return size.

>> test.ColorEnum.RED == 'GREEN'
ans =
     0
>> test.ColorEnum.RED == 'RED'
ans =
     1     1     1