Best way to define private methods for a class in Objective-C

Question

I just started programming Objective-C and, having a background in Java, wonder how people writing Objective-C programs deal with private methods.

I understand there may be several conventions and habits and think about this question as an aggregator of the best techniques people use dealing with private methods in Objective-C.

Please include an argument for your approach when posting it. Why is it good? Which drawbacks does it have (that you know of) and how you deal with them?

---

As for my findings so far.

It is possible to use categories [e.g. MyClass (Private)] defined in MyClass.m file to group private methods.

This approach has 2 issues:

1. XCode (and compiler?) does not check if you define all methods in private category in corresponding @implementation block
2. You have to put @interface declaring your private category in the begin of MyClass.m file, otherwise XCode complains smth like "self may not respond to message "privateFoo"

The first issue can be worked around with empty category [e.g. MyClass ()].
The second one bothers me a lot. I'd like to see private methods implemented (and defined) near the end of the file; I do not know if that's possible.

Answer 1

While I am no Objective-C expert, I personally just define the method in the implementation of my class. Granted, it must be defined before (above) any methods calling it, but it definitely takes the least amount of work to do.

Answer 2

There isn't really a "private method" in Objective-C, if the runtime can work out which implementation to use it will do it. But that's not to say that there aren't methods which aren't part of the documented interface. For those methods I think that a category is fine. Rather than putting the @interface at the top of the .m file like your point 2, I'd put it into its own .h file. A convention I follow (and have seen elsewhere, not sure if it's Apple convention) is to name such a file after its class and category with a + separating them, so @interface GLObject (PrivateMethods) can be found in GLObject+PrivateMethods.h. The reason for providing the header file is so that you can import it in your unit test classes :-).

By the way, as far as implementing/defining methods near the end of the .m file is concerned, you can do that with a category by implementing the category at the bottom of the .m file:

@implementation GLObject(PrivateMethods)
- (void)secretFeature;
@end

or with a class continuation (the thing you call an "empty category"), just define those methods last. Of course to avoid compiler warnings they still need to be declared before any method which uses them.

Answer 3

There's no way of getting around issue #2. That's just the way the C compiler (and hence the Objective-C compiler) work. If you use the XCode editor, the function popup should make it easy to navigate the @interface and @implementation blocks in the file.

Answer 4

You could try defining a static function below or above your implementation that takes a pointer to your instance. It will be able to access any of your instances variables.

//.h file
@interface MyClass : Object
{
    int test;
}
- (void) someMethod: anArg;

@end


//.m file    
@implementation MyClass

static void somePrivateMethod (MyClass *myClass, id anArg)
{
    fprintf (stderr, "MyClass (%d) was passed %p", myClass->test, anArg);
}


- (void) someMethod: (id) anArg
{
    somePrivateMethod (self, anArg);
}

@end

Answer 5

There isn't, as others have already said, such a thing as a private method in Objective-C. However, starting in Objective-C 2.0 (meaning Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone OS 2.0, and later) you can create a category with an empty name (i.e. @interface MyClass ()). What's unique about the "empty name category" is that the method implementations can go in the same @implementation MyClass as the public methods. So I structure my classes like this:

In the .h file:

@interface MyClass {
    // My Instance Variables
}

- (void)myPublicMethod;

@end

And in the .m file:

@interface MyClass()

- (void)myPrivateMethod;

@end

@implementation MyClass

- (void)myPublicMethod {
    // Implementation goes here
}

- (void)myPrivateMethod {
    // Implementation goes here
}

@end

I think the greatest advantage of this approach is that it allows you to group your method implementations by functionality, not by the (sometimes arbitrary) public/private distinction.

Answer 6

Useful recommendations: http://blog.screencustoms.com/post/481678769/objc-coding-guidelines-private-methods

Answer 7

If you wanted to avoid the @interface block at the top you could always put the private declarations in another file MyClassPrivate.h not ideal but its not cluttering up the implementation.

MyClass.h

interface MyClass : NSObject {
 @private
  BOOL publicIvar_;
  BOOL privateIvar_;
}

@property (nonatomic, assign) BOOL publicIvar;
//any other public methods. etc
@end

MyClassPrivate.h

@interface MyClass ()

@property (nonatomic, assign) BOOL privateIvar;
//any other private methods etc.
@end

MyClass.m

#import "MyClass.h"
#import "MyClassPrivate.h"
@implementation MyClass

@synthesize privateIvar = privateIvar_;
@synthesize publicIvar = publicIvar_;

@end