Cell Array of Player Objects Not Printing All Fields - matlab

Question

I've written a basic class definition as follows:
classdef player
properties
team
name
rating
ranking
end
methods
end
end
I get a cell array of player objects, called allPlayers, with every field but ranking already set. I then call the below function on it:
function setRankings(players)
for i = 1 : length(players)
players{i}.ranking = i;
end
end
At this point, all the fields of each player object should be set. I call the below function to display each field:
function displayPlayers(players)
for i = 1 : length(players)
current = players{i};
disp(['Name: ', current.name]);
disp(['Team: ', current.team]);
disp(['Rating: ', current.rating]);
disp(['Ranking: ', current.ranking]);
end
end
Unfortunately, each player prints out as follows (just an example):
'Name: ' 'Shleifer,Sam'
Team: Yale
'Rating: ' '5.050000'
Ranking:
So it looks like the ranking field doesn't actually get set by setRankings.
Why is this?

Answer 1

To get the behavior you desire you must make your class a 'handle' class - as opposed to a 'value' class. See this link for more information.
This is how to do it:
classdef player < handle
properties
team
name
rating
ranking
end
methods
end
end
Note that you can use value class too, but in that case you'd have to return the new list of players in setRanking.