Private Functions

The name itself suggests that these functions are private and will only be visible to limited functions/files. These functions files are stored in a separate subfolder named private. Generally, we can’t access files that are not in the current path/folder. But this works for private functions. These functions reside in subfolder and accessible to the parent folder and private folder itself. Now let’s dive into some example to understand the concept better.

Example:

Save the above code as adder.m in separate folder and create one more folder called private.

Save the above code as print.m and save it in the private folder.

Save the above code as subtractor.m and store it in outside of parent folder. Now let’s observe the output by accessing the above functions.

Output:

In the above case, you can observe the error when we try to access private functions from the location other than the parent folder.

The program compiled successfully and gave the output when we tried to access the private function from adder function which is stored in the parent folder. One must check the current file path while working on private functions.

Methods are also popularly known as functions. The main aim of the methods is to reuse the code. A method is a block of code which is invoked and executed when it is called by the user. It contains local workspace and independent of base workspace which belongs to command prompt. Let’s take a glance of method syntax.

Syntax:

          function [y₁, y₂ ,y₃ . . . . , y_n] = functionName(arguments)

          . . . . . 

         end

where, y₁ . . . . y_n are output variables.

MATLAB syntax is quite peculiar compared to other programming languages. We can return one or more values from a function. We can also pass one or more arguments/variables while calling a function. MATLAB functions must be defined in separate files and function name must match with the file name. Let’s also see the few more ways of defining a function as per the user needs.

• Anonymous Functions
• Sub Functions
• Nested Functions
• Private Functions

Now let’s dive into an example and understand how to define a basic function.

Example:

The comment line that is written just after the function statement works as the help text. Save the above code as adder.m and observe the output by calling it from the command prompt.

Output: