Can you pass a class to a Matlab Function without calling its constructor?

I want to make a function that allows an enum class to be passed to it, so that I can display some information about that class, but I don't want the constructor of the class to be called.

Ideally, the following code would work:

function [enumDescript] = myEnumerate(enum)

enumName = inputname(1);
[enumVals, enumStr] = enumeration(enumName);
enumDescript = [num2cell(double(enumVals)) enumStr];

end

where enum is an enum such as:

classdef EnumExample < Simulink.IntEnumType
    enumeration
        none(0) 
    	test(1)
        fail(2)
    end
end

However, when calling:

>> myEnumerate(EnumExample)

this results in the following error, beacuse the function tried to instantiate the class "enum" even though there is no need for it.

Cannot call the constructor of 'EnumExample' outside of its enumeration block. 

I know I can use a string as the input of the funciton like this:

>> myEnumerate('EnumExample')

but then I can't use tab-complete, which is quite annoying for this use case.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

No, you cannot do that.

However, I wonder if for your purposes it would be workable to

myEnumerate(?EnumExample)

[MrPowerElectronics]

Nice, now I can do this, which seems to work!

function [enumDescript] = myEnumerate(enum)
enumName = enum.Name;
[enumVals, enumStr] = enumeration(enumName);
enumDescript = [num2cell(double(enumVals)) enumStr];
end

And call it like this:

myEnumerate(?EnumExample)

I didn't know about the ? operator so thanks very much. If you post it as an answer I'll accept it.

[Walter Roberson]

I did post it as an Answer ;-)

[MrPowerElectronics]

Haha you're right my bad