How to get unique members of an array of handle classes?

I have an array of classdef object derived from handle. It is possible that some of these members could actually point to the same object instance. I would like to get the unique members of this array. I tried the unique function, but it only works for type double.

I realise one solution is to add a method to my class, double(obj), which would allow me to use the unique function. The problem then is getting a value to return from this method. Is there some unique object identifier I can access to do this?

I'm also open to other ways to achieve the same result (a unique array of handle objects).

Answer 1

[Rik]

Since 2013a the unique function supports objects. Before that, you could try a nested loop with calls to isequal, or indeed convert to double (which will only work on pre-2014b).

close all
f=figure;
f2=figure;
h=f;
h2=f;
unique_handle_array=unique([f,f2,h,h2])
%returns handles to figure(1) and figure(2)

[Richard Crozier]

You're right, actually I was being fooled by another error I had made in my code.