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iOS Objective-C Basics (Retired) Introduction to Objective-C Inheritance

Christopher Ruggles
Christopher Ruggles
1,253 Points

How can property be designated to a class?

I am trying to answer this challenge. Now sure how to designate a class for a property.

Finally, we have a class named 'Bling' which needs to have a property called 'ruby'. Switch over to 'Bling.h' and add a property named 'ruby' that belongs to the class 'Ruby'.

2 Answers

A property can be created with @property, and it goes between the @interface and @end similar to this video at around 1:35.

Here is another video about @property.

Michael Hulet
Michael Hulet
47,912 Points

Above the @interface declaration, you need to tell the compiler what you're talking about when you declare your @property later on. This is done using @class, in this case. When you do that, the compiler will know what you're talking about later on. This code for that file passes:

//The below line is where you tell the compiler about the Ruby class. It's kinda like using #import "Ruby.h", but this way, you don't unnecessarily get a bunch of stuff from Ruby
@class Ruby;

@interface Bling : NSObject
//Here is where you declare your @property. From left to right, saying it's a property automatically gives you an instance variable, and setter and getter methods for that variable. What's in the parentheses says that it's not thread-safe (which has to do with multithreading) and tells the system to hold a strong pointer to it. You'll learn more about what all that means later. Then, you're saying that it's an instance of the Ruby class, and finally naming the property "ruby"
@property (nonatomic, strong) Ruby *ruby;

@end