Subclassing matlab.mixin.CustomDisplay is the best
approach to customizing object display. However, if you do not derive
your class from matlab.mixin.CustomDisplay, overload
the disp function to change
how MATLAB® displays objects of your class.
MATLAB calls the display function
whenever an object is referred to in a statement that is not terminated
by a semicolon. For example, the following statement creates the variable a. MATLAB calls display,
which displays the value of a in the command line.
a = 5
a =
5
display then calls disp.
The built-in display function prints the
name of the variable that is being displayed, if an assignment is
made, or otherwise uses ans as the variable name.
Then display calls disp to handle
the actual display of the values.
If the variable that is being displayed is an object of a class
that overloads disp, then MATLAB always calls
the overloaded method. MATLAB calls display with
two arguments and passes the variable name as the second argument.
MATLAB invokes the built-in display function
when:
MATLAB executes a statement that returns a value and is not terminated with a semicolon.
There is no left-side variable, then MATLAB prints ans
= followed by the value.
Code explicitly invokes the display function.
When invoked display:
If the input argument is an existing variable, display prints
the variable name and equal sign, followed by the value.
If the input is the result of an expression, display
does not print ans =.
MATLAB invokes the built-in disp function
when:
The built-in display function calls disp.
Code explicitly invokes disp.
For empty built-in types (numeric types, char, struct,
and cell) the display function
displays:
[] — for numeric types
"0x0 struct array with no fields." —
for empty structs.
"Empty cell array: 0-by-1" —
for empty cell arrays.
'' — for empty char arrays
disp differs from display in
these ways:
disp does not print the variable
name or ans.
disp prints nothing for built-in
types (numeric types, char, struct,
and cell) when the value is empty.