Xcode regions

Question

Does Xcode support anything akin to Visual Studio style #region directives for arbitrary code folding?

Answer 1

No, you can only fold code on various defined scoping levels in Xcode.

You can use little tricks to make navigating via the function menu easier, though.

#pragma mark

Allows you to create a grouping where the label following mark will show up in the function menu. If the label is a hyphen, a separator is inserted into the function menu.

Also, the following labels in comments will show up in the function menu:

// MARK:
// TODO:
// FIXME:
// !!!:
// ???:

Obviously since #pragma mark is not really portable, if you're building a portable application and need it to work with a compiler that doesn't just ignore #pragma directives that it doesn't understand, the comment-style mark is a decent alternative.

Answer 2

I am going to hell for this but here goes:

At the top of a given file, put

#define FOLD 1

Wherever you want to fold something, wrap it in an if block like so:

if(FOLD) {
 // your code to hide
 // more code
}

That will let you fold it away out of sight.

Answer 3

That won't work in the place you want it most, that is, around groups of functions or methods.

It may be useful inside a long, linear method with no internal conditionals or loops, but such methods aren't common in general Mac OS X UI code, though if you're writing some big numeric or graphics-crunching code it could help group things.

And the if(fold) is entirely superfluous. Just use the braces inside a method or function and Xcode will fold them.