MATLAB Language MATLAB User Interfaces Passing data around using the "handles" structure
Example
This is an example of a basic GUI with two buttons that change a value stored in the GUI's handles structure.
function gui_passing_data()
% A basic GUI with two buttons to show a simple use of the 'handles'
% structure in GUI building
% Create a new figure.
f = figure();
% Retrieve the handles structure
handles = guidata(f);
% Store the figure handle
handles.figure = f;
% Create an edit box and two buttons (plus and minus),
% and store their handles for future use
handles.hedit = uicontrol('Style','edit','Position',[10,200,60,20] , 'Enable', 'Inactive');
handles.hbutton_plus = uicontrol('Style','pushbutton','String','+',...
'Position',[80,200,60,20] , 'Callback' , @ButtonPress);
handles.hbutton_minus = uicontrol('Style','pushbutton','String','-',...
'Position',[150,200,60,20] , 'Callback' , @ButtonPress);
% Define an initial value, store it in the handles structure and show
% it in the Edit box
handles.value = 1;
set(handles.hedit , 'String' , num2str(handles.value))
% Store handles
guidata(f, handles);
function ButtonPress(hObject, eventdata)
% A button was pressed
% Retrieve the handles
handles = guidata(hObject);
% Determine which button was pressed; hObject is the calling object
switch(get(hObject , 'String'))
case '+'
% Add 1 to the value
handles.value = handles.value + 1;
set(handles.hedit , 'String', num2str(handles.value))
case '-'
% Substract 1 from the value
handles.value = handles.value - 1;
end
% Display the new value
set(handles.hedit , 'String', num2str(handles.value))
% Store handles
guidata(hObject, handles);
To test the example, save it in a file called gui_passing_data.m and launch it with F5.
Please note that in such a simple case, you would not even need to store the value in the handles structure because you could directly access it from the edit box's String property.
