Trouble with inheritance i MATLAB OOP

I have two classes. ParameterFile and PathParameterFile. Both are used to read from an xml file and get its contents. PathParameterFile is a child class of ParameterFile. In PathParameterFile constructor, you pass in a path of the xmlfile, it reads out the xmlfile and stores it in a struct. This one has 2 Properties.

properties        
        Path;
        xmlStruct;        
    end

And the constructor is like this

    function obj = PathParameterFile(path)          
    obj.xmlStruct = readstruct(path);
    end

Then there is a second function called extractdata that extracts individual data from the struct and stores it in seperate properties. Here in this xml file we only have one value, that is the path to a different xml file.

    function extractData(obj)            
    obj.Path = obj.xmlStruct.Path;                
    end

This is the PathParameterFile class which is also the child class.

Now the Parent Class which is ParameterFile is similar, but it has more Properties and methods to return the properties. These are the properties

    properties       
    Path;
    MaximumVoltage;
    MinimumVoltage;
    AllowedDeviation;
    xmlStruct;
    end

And this is constructor and extractData function.

    function obj = ParameterFile(path)            
    %xmlFile = 'X:\5000 R&D\BM57V311_FAT_DataAnalysis\FAT Upgrade\Fat_Upgrade.xml';
    obj.xmlStruct = readstruct(path);            
    end
    
    function extractData(obj) 
    batteryType = 'battery1';           
    obj.Path = obj.xmlStruct.(batteryType).Path;                
    end

Now as i said there are functions to return the properties. That is here I get to return the Path. So I have a function like this.

    function outputPath = getPath(obj)            
    outputPath = obj.Path;            
    end

This is my idea. So I enter the path in the command window and store it in path1 and use that path to create an object of PathParameterFile, like this

    pm1 = PathParameterFile(path1);

Then I use the function getPath to retrieve the path in xml file and store it in path2.

    path2 = pm1.getPath; 

And use path2 to create an object of ParameterFile and then get all the values there. So getPath is only writtern in Parent Class, its not written in Child Class. I just plan to call it using the child Class . This is the total idea. But my proplem is when I create an object of PathParameterFile i.e

pm1 = PathParameterFile(path1)

, its giving an error

    Cannot define property 'Path' in class
    'PathParameterFile' because the property has already
    been defined in the superclass 'ParameterFile'.

So what is the problem here. I need to use Path in both child and parent class, so that I can write the getPath function only in ParentClass and call it using the child class. Is that not possible. What needs to be done. Thank you.

Answer 1

[Matt J]

Remove these property declarations from PathParameterFile,

   properties        
        Path;
        xmlStruct;            
   end
  

Since these properties are already defined in the parent class, they are already available in the child class and you do not need to define them again there (and it is forbidden to do so).

[Govind Sankar Madhavan Pillai Ramachandran Nair]

Thank you and it worked. Now I enter into the world of inheritance in OOP in MATLAB. This was the first time I used it and now since it works, I have an idea. Thank you very much.