How can I reference an Object and edit it's properties from a NSMutableArray?

Question

NSMutableArray *persons = [ [ NSMutableArray alloc ] init ];

How can I edit person attributes without doing something like:

Person *p = [ [ Person alloc ] init ];
p = [ persons objectAtIndex:0 ];
p.name = "James Foo";
[ persons replaceObjectAtIndex: ([ persons count ] - 1 )  withObject:p];

I would like to do something like:

[ persons objectAtIndex:0 ].name = "James Foo";

Answer 1

But you can. You have to cast the generic id into your type though:

((Person*)[persons objectAtIndex:0]).name = "James Foo";

Answer 2

This example code also has a memory leak; you shouldn't need to alloc a new person instance in that case; you could just do the following if you don't want to cast anything:

Person *p = [persons objectAtIndex:0];
p.name = @"James Foo";

and you don't need to re-add it to the array since getting the object at a location doesn't remove it from the array on its own.