What exactly does 'gobjects' do?

I just noticed the new gobjects function starting in R2013a. The MATLAB documentation states that users should use gobjects instead of zeros to initalize arrays for storing graphics handles.

When I use gobjects the resulting array looks like a double array in every way, exactly what zeros would output. Is gobjects actually doing anything special or is this just something saved for a future release?

(p.s. the code is stored in "%matlab root%\toolbox\matlab\graphics\gobjects.p" so I can't see what's going on inside.)

Answer 1

[Jan]

I claim that the type of graphic handles will differ from double in the future. Then gobjects is useful for forward compatibility.

Using the double type can lead to collisions, e.g. in

   plot(AxesHandle, y)

when y is a scalar (see Answers: magic numbers).