Dynamic properties are used when you do not provide an implementation at compile time, but make sure that it exists at run time. Being a dynamic language, Objective-C can respond to messages at runtime, even if the class has no implementation at compile time.
Here's a far-fetched example: let's say you have a Booksupported class NSMutableDictionarythat holds keys titleand author. However, you want it to Bookrespond to titleand author, and have them as properties; titleand authorthey will extract the corresponding value from the dictionary, and setTitle:they setAuthor:will change the value stored in the dictionary. You can do this with this code :
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
@interface Book : NSObject
{
NSMutableDictionary *data;
}
@property (retain) NSString *title;
@property (retain) NSString *author;
@end
@implementation Book
@dynamic title, author;
- (id)init
{
if ((self = [super init])) {
data = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
[data setObject:@"Tom Sawyer" forKey:@"title"];
[data setObject:@"Mark Twain" forKey:@"author"];
}
return self;
}
- (void)dealloc
{
[data release];
[super dealloc];
}
- (NSMethodSignature *)methodSignatureForSelector:(SEL)selector
{
NSString *sel = NSStringFromSelector(selector);
if ([sel rangeOfString:@"set"].location == 0) {
return [NSMethodSignature signatureWithObjCTypes:"v@:@"];
} else {
return [NSMethodSignature signatureWithObjCTypes:"@@:"];
}
}
- (void)forwardInvocation:(NSInvocation *)invocation
{
NSString *key = NSStringFromSelector([invocation selector]);
if ([key rangeOfString:@"set"].location == 0) {
key = [[key substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(3, [key length]-4)] lowercaseString];
NSString *obj;
[invocation getArgument:&obj atIndex:2];
[data setObject:obj forKey:key];
} else {
NSString *obj = [data objectForKey:key];
[invocation setReturnValue:&obj];
}
}
@end
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
Book *book = [[Book alloc] init];
printf("%s is written by %s\n", [book.title UTF8String], [book.author UTF8String]);
book.title = @"1984";
book.author = @"George Orwell";
printf("%s is written by %s\n", [book.title UTF8String], [book.author UTF8String]);
[book release];
[pool release];
return 0;
}
Note that methods are created at runtime through forwardInvocation:; therefore, titlethey authorare dynamic properties.
(This is not a good example, but I think it makes sense.)
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