iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Properties

Each time you have declared an instance variable in BNRItem, you have declared and implemented a pair of accessor methods. Now you are going to learn to use properties, a convenient alternative to writing out accessors methods that saves a lot of typing and makes your class files easier to read.

Declaring properties

A property declaration has the following form:

@property NSString *itemName;

By default, declaring a property will get you three things: an instance variable and two accessors for the instance variable. Take a look at Table 3.1, which shows a class not using properties on the left and the equivalent class with properties on the right.

Table 3.1  With and without properties

	Without ...