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iOS Build a Simple iPhone App with Objective-C Creating a Data Model Refactoring Into a Model

Posted by Unsubscribed User
Unsubscribed User
11,042 Points

Why not always use the _property keyword instead of using self.property?

As I wrote in the title, why it's a common pratice to use self.property instead use _property, that's always ready to use, unlike the self.property notation?

1 Answer

agreatdaytocode
agreatdaytocode
24,757 Points

So in Objective-C you had something like this:

@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *someString;

You could access someString by doing self.someString or _someString

self.someString` is the recommended way of doing it since it passes through KVO and calls the correct setters / getters (if you were to override those)

_someString` would just set the variable

So an @property was a bit magic because it would create two methods that you woudln't see:

  • (void)setSomeString:(NSString *)someString {}

and -(NSString *)someString`

You can read up on all this here