Undefined function 'plus' for input arguments of type 'matlab.ui.Figure'.

I get this error message when I run a script that was given to me on my data and may well have been written in an earlier version - I am working 2014b.

Any ideas? This is the full error message, but I haven't copied the script in as it's really quite long.

Undefined function 'plus' for input arguments of type 'matlab.ui.Figure'.

Error in PRL_analyseData>getNewFig (line 538) hfig = varargin{1}+1;

Error in PRL_analyseData (line 160) hfig = getNewFig(hfig,cmap);

[Adam]

You probably need to rework the script to use an array of figure objects rather than doing maths on the old handles to refer to presumably the next figure.

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

The reason it does not work in 2014b is because figures handles are no longer numbers. Thus you can't add 1 to them anymore.

Without seeing anymore of the code, it's difficult to give you any advice on how to solve this.

[José-Luis]

I haven't played with 2014b yet but it looks like a lot of my plotting functions are going to break. Oh well, Matlab graphics have not been particularly pretty so this is an ---annoying--- step in the right direction.

Shot in the dark:

 hfig = varargin{1}.Number + 1;

[Daisy]

Thank you for your comments - appreciate the help. The above didn't work sadly.

Guillaume - I'm afraid I'm too much of a matlab novice to really know which part(s) of the code are useful to copy over.

Is this helpful?

function hfig = getNewFig(varargin);
hfig = varargin{1}+1;
hfig = figure; hold on; box off

if numel(varargin)==2
    set(hfig,'DefaultAxesColorOrder',varargin{2},'position',[10 60 500 500],...
        'paperunits','centimeters','paperposition',[0 0 6 6],'Color','w');
else
    set(hfig,'position',[10 60 500 500],...
        'paperunits','centimeters','paperposition',[0 0 6 6],'Color','w');
end

end

[Guillaume]

If that is indeed the code, then you can just delete the line

hfig = varargin{1}+1;

as it doesn't do anything. hfig is just overwritten in the next line.

Actually, you could rewrite the function as:

function hfig = getNewFig(~, colororder)
   hfig = figure; hold on; box off
   set(hfig,'position',[10 60 500 500],...
      'paperunits','centimeters','paperposition',[0 0 6 6],'Color','w');
   if nargin == 2
      set(hfig,'DefaultAxesColorOrder',colororder);
   end
end

It would do exactly the same, and would be cleaner. Even cleaner would be to get rid of the first argument which is not used, but that would also require you to modify all the calls to the function.

While any of the above should get rid of the error you've reported, it's possible you'll run into the same problem further along the code. You will have to post that section of code as well, if you can't figure out how to solve it.

[Guillaume]

Follow up to the misplaced comment/answer:

Replace the first line of

 for t = 1:hfig
    print(t,'-depsc','-tiff','-r300',sprintf('Figure%d',t));
end

by

 for t = 1:hfig.Number

[Daisy]

Thank you, that's most helpful

[Guillaume]

If you're happy with the solution provided, you should accept it.

Answer 2

[Daisy]

Many thanks, that has definitely helped. However I now have a different error message:

Undefined function 'vline' for input arguments of type 'double'.

    Error in PRL_analyseData (line 266)
    vline(40.5,'k:');

This is the section of the code it relates to. Is it to do with 2014b changes again?

% average and smoothed average probability of chosing correctly on each
% trial
choiceBinary = choice;
choiceBinary(choice==2)=0;
plotdata{1} = choiceBinary;
plotdata{2}= mySmooth(choiceBinary,span,2);
for n = 2 % can also plot the raw data, then n=1
    hfig = getNewFig(hfig,cmap);
    mu = [];     sem = [];
    for t = cond
        mu(:,t) = mean(plotdata{n}(groupMember==t,:));
        switch n
            case 1
                plot(mu(:,t),'linewidth',2,'color',cmap(t,:))
            case 2
                sem(:,t) = std(plotdata{n}(groupMember==t,:),[],1)/sqrt(nsgroup(t)); end
    end
    if n==2
        b = nan(nt,1,max(cond));
        b(:,1,:) = sem;
        x = repmat(1:nt,max(cond),1)';
        boundedline(x,mu,b,'alpha','cmap',cmap)
    end
legend(groupLabel,'location','Best')
vline(40.5,'k:');
xlabel('trial');
ylabel('p(stimulus1)')
ylim([0 1])
end

[Guillaume]

Please, reply in comments rather than starting a new answer.

This has nothing to do with 2014b. vline is not a function that ships with matlab. Most likely it came from the file exchange

[Daisy]

This I've actually managed to resolve with further investigation. Thanks

[Daisy]

My apologies. Yes, I worked out that vline came from the file exchange. Thanks. I now have an issue with:

No method 'colon' with matching signature found.

Error in PRL_analyseData (line 303)
for t = 1:hfig

This relates to this section of the script:

hfig = getNewFig(hfig,cmap);
mu = []; sem = [];
for t = cond
    mu(1,t) = mean(WS(groupMember==t));
    mu(2,t) = mean(LS(groupMember==t));
    sem(1,t) = mean(WS(groupMember==t))/sqrt(nsgroup(t));
    sem(2,t) = mean(LS(groupMember==t))/sqrt(nsgroup(t));
end
barweb(mu,sem,groupLabel,{'WStay','LShift'},'Best',0.8,cmap);
set(gca,'xtick',1:2);

for t = 1:hfig
    print(t,'-depsc','-tiff','-r300',sprintf('Figure%d',t));
end

end

I am reading about signatures in order to try and resolve this, but would appreciate any help

[Guillaume]

Please, find the reply as a comment to my answer rather than here.

Answer 3

[Matthew]

An updated answer to this is to overload the 'plus' function. It seems that matlab calls the builtin for inline operators by default, even if the overload doesn't pay any attention to the rules for overloading a function. I have no idea why this is though, as overloading other critical functions like sprintf seems to cause a world of pain.

Regardless of the reason, this oddity means the following function can be placed anywhere in your path, and it will only be called if the regular plus function can't handle the inputs, so it doesn't impact normal behavior or performance.

function out = plus(A,B)
try
     out = double(A) + double(B)
catch
     %Fail with the built-in
     builtin('plus',A,B)
end