How to assign multiple variables to variables of a class that is in an array without for-loop.

I found it difficult to formulate my question. Here is my problem:

classdef myClassA <handle
    properties 
        arrayOfMyClassB
    end
end

classdef myClassB <handle
    properties 
        age;
    end
end

function example()
       %say arrayOfClassB have 10 elements and i want to sign element 5 to
       %10  age 7. What I though I could do was as follows:
       instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(5:10).age = 10;
       %I get error:
       %Expected one output from a curly brace or dot indexing expression, but there were 2
       %results.
end

I understand what goes wrong and that I can fix it with a for-loop. My problem is that in a code I have written I do this alot. Therefore I am wondering if there is a simple way to fix this without needing to write for-loops?

Answer 1

[Dave B]

I'm not sure I recommend it, as it's non trivial to read, but I'm pretty sure in this particular case you can do:

[instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(5:10).age] = deal(10);

This was my test code (with your class definitions):

instanceOfMyClassA = myClassA;
instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB = myClassB;
instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(2) = myClassB;
instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(3) = myClassB;
instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(4) = myClassB;

[instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(1:2).age] = deal(10);
[instanceOfMyClassA.arrayOfMyClassB(3:4).age] = deal(1);

An alternative, if you're willing to go down a little rabbit hole, is to override subsasgn...