Conversion from an old to a new version of a class with different property names

Let's say that I have a custom class testClass

classdef testClass
    properties
        input1
        computationResultPropertyNameThatsTooLong
    end
    methods
        function tc = testClass(input1)
            tc.input1 = input1;
            expensiveFunction = @sqrt;
            tc.computationResultPropertyNameThatsTooLong = expensiveFunction(input1);
        end 
    end
end

I'm offloading the computation of the testClass objects (of which I have tens of thousands) to another machine. Is there any way to make it so that I can alter the property names of testClass in a "clean " way (let's say I change computationResultPropertyNameThatsTooLong to computationResultBetterName) such that I can load in the data from the *.mat file as valid testClass objects? I can of course run the computations again, but I would prefer not to.

Answer 1

[Matt J]

One way is with a Dependent property. This makes it so you can reference the same property using tc.shortname.

classdef testClass
    properties
        input1
    end
    properties (Dependent)
        shortname
    end
    properties (SetAccess = immutable, Hidden)
        computationResultPropertyNameThatsTooLong
    end
    methods
            function tc = testClass(input1)
                tc.input1 = input1;
                tc.computationResultPropertyNameThatsTooLong = expensiveFunction(input1);
            end 
            
            function val=get.shortname(tc)
                val=tc.computationResultPropertyNameThatsTooLong;             
            end
    end
end

[Dani A]

wow ok so I think this works ! setting it as a dependent property and the old property as hidden and immutable is clever. I'm testing it with my real data - i'll accept your answer later this evening when I've confirmed that it works