function handles & dispatch

[Ben Abbott]

On Jun 23, 2009, at 5:58 AM, Jaroslav Hajek wrote:

> hi,
>
> scanning the Matlab online docs, I found this paragraph in the section
> on function handles:
>
> For nonoverloaded functions, subfunctions, and private functions, a
> function handle references just the one function specified in the
> @functionname syntax. When you evaluate an overloaded function by
> means of its handle, the arguments the handle is evaluated with
> determine the actual function that MATLAB dispatches to.
>
> I don't think Octave currently does this - only functions are looked
> for, and the function is fixed once the handle is evaluated. Can
> anyone verify this is true in Matlab? Should we change the behavior to
> be Matlab compatible?
>
> regards

I haven't implemented any overloading myself, but have used Matlab  
toolboxes that do.

One nice example is CVX: Matlab Software for Disciplined Convex  
Programming.

	http://www.stanford.edu/~boyd/cvx/

Also, overloaded functions are included in Matlab's core functions.

	.../Matlab_R2009a.app/toobox/matlab/datafun/@cell
	.../Matlab_R2009a.app/toobox/matlab/datafun/@uint8
	.../Matlab_R2009a.app/toobox/matlab/datafun/@uint16

These directories contain conv2.m, convnc.m, fft.m, fftn.m ifft.m, &  
ifftn.m. The versions for double reside directly in the datafun  
directory.

As the CVS license uses GNU General Public License 2.0, it would be  
nice to be able to run it from Octave.

Ben