iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Properties

Each time we’ve added an instance variable to BNRItem, we’ve declared and implemented a pair of accessor methods. Now we’re going to see how to use properties instead. Properties are a convenient alternative to writing out accessors for instance variables – one that saves a lot of typing and makes your class files much clearer to read.

Declaring properties

A property is declared in the interface of a class where methods are declared. A property declaration has the following form:

@​p​r​o​p​e​r​t​y​ ​N​S​S​t​r​i​n​g​ ​*​i​t​e​m​N​a​m​e​;​

When you declare a property, you are implicitly declaring a setter and a getter for the instance variable of the same name. So the above line of code is equivalent to the following:

-​ ​(​v​o​i​d​)​s​e​t​I​t​e​m​N​a​m​e​:​(​N​S​S​t​r​i​n​g​ ...