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Language Summary

Objective-C adds a small number of constructs to the C language and defines a handful of conventions for effectively interacting with the runtime system. This appendix lists all the additions to the language but doesn’t go into great detail. For more information, see the other chapters in this document. .

In this section:

Messages
Defined Types
Preprocessor Directives
Compiler Directives
Classes
Categories
Formal Protocols
Method Declarations
Method Implementations
Deprecation Syntax
Naming Conventions

Messages

Message expressions are enclosed in square brackets:

[receiver message]

The receiver can be:

• A variable or expression that evaluates to an object (including the variable self)

• A class name (indicating the class object)

• super (indicating an alternative search for the method implementation)

The message is the name of a method plus any arguments passed to it.

Defined Types

The principal types used in Objective-C are defined in objc/objc.h. They are:

id can be used to type any kind of object, class, or instance. In addition, class names can be used as type names to statically type instances of a class. A statically typed instance is declared to be a pointer to its class or to any class it inherits from.

The objc.h header file also defines these useful terms:

Preprocessor Directives

The preprocessor understands these special notations:

Compiler Directives

Directives to the compiler begin with “@”. The following directives are used to declare and define classes, categories, and protocols:

The following mutually exclusive directives specify the visibility of instance variables:

The default is @protected.

These directives support exception handling:

The following directives support the declared properties feature (see “Declared Properties”):

In addition, there are directives for these particular purposes:

Classes

A new class is declared with the @interface directive. The interface file for its superclass must be imported:

#import "ItsSuperclass.h"

@interface ClassName : ItsSuperclass < protocol_list >

{

    instance variable declarations

}

method declarations

@end

Everything but the compiler directives and class name is optional. If the colon and superclass name are omitted, the class is declared to be a new root class. If any protocols are listed, the header files where they’re declared must also be imported.

A file containing a class definition imports its own interface:

#import "ClassName.h"

@implementation ClassName

method definitions

@end

Categories

A category is declared in much the same way as a class. The interface file that declares the class must be imported:

#import "ClassName.h"

@interface ClassName ( CategoryName ) < protocol list >

method declarations

@end

The protocol list and method declarations are optional. If any protocols are listed, the header files where they’re declared must also be imported.

Like a class definition, a file containing a category definition imports its own interface:

#import "CategoryName.h"

@implementation ClassName ( CategoryName )

method definitions

@end

Formal Protocols

Formal protocols are declared using the @protocol directive:

@protocol ProtocolName < protocol list >

declarations of required methods

@optional

declarations of optional methods

@required

declarations of required methods

@end

The list of incorporated protocols and the method declarations are optional. The protocol must import the header files that declare any protocols it incorporates.

The @optional directive specifies that following methods are optional; the @required directive directive specifies that following methods must be implemented by a class that adopts the protocol. The default is @required.

You can create a forward reference to a protocol using the @protocol directive in the following manner:

@protocol ProtocolName;

Within source code, protocols are referred to using the similar @protocol() directive, where the parentheses enclose the protocol name.

Protocol names listed within angle brackets (<...>) are used to do three different things:

• In a protocol declaration, to incorporate other protocols (as shown earlier)

• In a class or category declaration, to adopt the protocol (as shown in “Classes” and “Categories”)

• In a type specification, to limit the type to objects that conform to the protocol

Within protocol declarations, these type qualifiers support remote messaging:

Method Declarations

The following conventions are used in method declarations:

• A “+” precedes declarations of class methods.

• A “-” precedes declarations of instance methods.

• Argument and return types are declared using the C syntax for type casting.

• Arguments are declared after colons (:), for example:

  - (void)setWidth:(int)newWidth height:(int)newHeight

  Typically, a label describing the argument precedes the colon—the following example is valid but is considered bad style:

  - (void)setWidthAndHeight:(int)newWidth :(int)newHeight

  Both labels and colons are considered part of the method name.

• The default return and argument type for methods is id, not int as it is for functions. (However, the modifier unsigned when used without a following type always means unsigned int.)

Method Implementations

Each method implementation is passed two hidden arguments:

• The receiving object (self).

• The selector for the method (_cmd).

Within the implementation, both self and super refer to the receiving object. super replaces self as the receiver of a message to indicate that only methods inherited by the implementation should be performed in response to the message.

Methods with no other valid return typically return void.

Deprecation Syntax

Syntax is provided to mark methods as deprecated:

@interface SomeClass

-method __attribute__((deprecated));

@end

or:

#include <AvailabilityMacros.h>

@interface SomeClass

-method DEPRECATED_ATTRIBUTE;  // or some other deployment-target-specific macro

@end

This syntax is available only in Objective-C 2.0 and later.

Naming Conventions

The names of files that contain Objective-C source code have the .m extension. Files that declare class and category interfaces or that declare protocols have the .h extension typical of header files.

Class, category, and protocol names generally begin with an uppercase letter; the names of methods and instance variables typically begin with a lowercase letter. The names of variables that hold instances usually also begin with lowercase letters.

In Objective-C, identical names that serve different purposes don’t clash. Within a class, names can be freely assigned:

• A class can declare methods with the same names as methods in other classes.

• A class can declare instance variables with the same names as variables in other classes.

• An instance method can have the same name as a class method.

• A method can have the same name as an instance variable.

• Method names beginning with “_”, a single underscore character, are reserved for use by Apple.

Likewise, protocols and categories of the same class have protected name spaces:

• A protocol can have the same name as a class, a category, or anything else.

• A category of one class can have the same name as a category of another class.

However, class names are in the same name space as global variables and defined types. A program can’t have a global variable with the same name as a class.

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