Editing MATLAB (section)

=== Classes and object-oriented programming ===
MATLAB supports [[object-oriented programming]] including classes, [[inheritance (object-oriented programming)|inheritance]], virtual dispatch, packages, [[pass-by-value]] semantics, and [[pass-by-reference]] semantics.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/object-oriented-programming.html |title=Object-Oriented Programming|publisher=MathWorks|access-date=August 14, 2013}}</ref> However, the syntax and calling conventions are significantly different from other languages. MATLAB has value classes and reference classes, depending on whether the class has ''handle'' as a super-class (for reference classes) or not (for value classes).<ref>{{cite web|title=Comparing Handle and Value Classes|url=http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_oop/comparing-handle-and-value-classes.html|publisher=MathWorks}}</ref>

Method call behavior is different between value and reference classes. For example, a call to a method:
<syntaxhighlight lang="matlab">
object.method();
</syntaxhighlight>
can alter any member of ''object'' only if ''object'' is an instance of a reference class, otherwise value class methods must return a new instance if it needs to modify the object.

An example of a simple class is provided below:

<syntaxhighlight lang="matlab">
classdef Hello
    methods
        function greet(obj)
            disp('Hello!')
        end
    end
end
</syntaxhighlight>

When put into a file named <code>hello.m</code>, this can be executed with the following commands:
<syntaxhighlight lang="matlabsession">
>> x = Hello();
>> x.greet();
Hello!
</syntaxhighlight>