Best way to define private methods for a class in

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?

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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 with a message 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

every objects in Objective C conform to NSObject protocol, which holds onto the performSelector: method. I was also previously looking for a way to create some "helper or private" methods that I did not need exposed on a public level. If you want to create a private method with no overhead and not having to define it in your header file then give this a shot...

define the your method with a similar signature as the code below...

-(void)myHelperMethod: (id) sender{
     // code here...
}

then when you need to reference the method simply call it as a selector...

[self performSelector:@selector(myHelperMethod:)];

this line of code will invoke the method you created and not have an annoying warning about not having it defined in the header file.

Answer 2

One more thing that I haven't seen mentioned here - Xcode supports .h files with "_private" in the name. Let's say you have a class MyClass - you have MyClass.m and MyClass.h and now you can also have MyClass_private.h. Xcode will recognize this and include it in the list of "Counterparts" in the Assistant Editor.

//MyClass.m
#import "MyClass.h"
#import "MyClass_private.h"

Answer 3

There is a benefit of private methods absence. You can move the logic that you intended to hide to the separate class and use it as delegate. In this case you can mark delegate object as private and it will not be visible from outside. Moving logic to the separate class (maybe several) makes better design of your project. Cause your classes become simpler and your methods are grouped in classes with proper names.

Answer 4

Defining your private methods in the @implementation block is ideal for most purposes. Clang will see these within the @implementation, regardless of declaration order. There is no need to declare them in a class continuation (aka class extension) or named category.

In some cases, you will need to declare the method in the class continuation (e.g. if using the selector between the class continuation and the @implementation).

static functions are very good for particularly sensitive or speed critical private methods.

A convention for naming prefixes can help you avoid accidentally overriding private methods (I find the class name as a prefix safe).

Named categories (e.g. @interface MONObject (PrivateStuff)) are not a particularly good idea because of potential naming collisions when loading. They're really only useful for friend or protected methods (which are very rarely a good choice). To ensure you are warned of incomplete category implementations, you should actually implement it:

@implementation MONObject (PrivateStuff)
...HERE...
@end

Here's a little annotated cheat sheet:

MONObject.h

@interface MONObject : NSObject

// public declaration required for clients' visibility/use.
@property (nonatomic, assign, readwrite) bool publicBool;

// public declaration required for clients' visibility/use.
- (void)publicMethod;

@end

MONObject.m

@interface MONObject ()
@property (nonatomic, assign, readwrite) bool privateBool;

// you can use a convention where the class name prefix is reserved
// for private methods this can reduce accidental overriding:
- (void)MONObject_privateMethod;

@end

// The potentially good thing about functions is that they are truly
// inaccessible; They may not be overridden, accidentally used,
// looked up via the objc runtime, and will often be eliminated from
// backtraces. Unlike methods, they can also be inlined. If unused
// (e.g. diagnostic omitted in release) or every use is inlined,
// they may be removed from the binary:
static void PrivateMethod(MONObject * pObject) {
    pObject.privateBool = true;
}

@implementation MONObject
{
    bool anIvar;
}

static void AnotherPrivateMethod(MONObject * pObject) {
    if (0 == pObject) {
        assert(0 && "invalid parameter");
        return;
    }

    // if declared in the @implementation scope, you *could* access the
    // private ivars directly (although you should rarely do this):
    pObject->anIvar = true;
}

- (void)publicMethod
{
    // declared below -- but clang can see its declaration in this
    // translation:
    [self privateMethod];
}

// no declaration required.
- (void)privateMethod
{
}

- (void)MONObject_privateMethod
{
}

@end

Another approach which may not be obvious: a C++ type can be both very fast and provide a much higher degree of control, while minimizing the number of exported and loaded objc methods.

Answer 5

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 6

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, I think it's an Apple convention as Xcode now gives automatic support for it) 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 extension (the thing you call an "empty category"), just define those methods last. Objective-C methods can be defined and used in any order in the implementation, so there's nothing to stop you putting the "private" methods at the end of the file.

Even with class extensions I will often create a separate header (GLObject+Extension.h) so that I can use those methods if required, mimicking "friend" or "protected" visibility.

Since this answer was originally written, the clang compiler has started doing two passes for Objective-C methods. This means you can avoid declaring your "private" methods completely, and whether they're above or below the calling site they'll be found by the compiler.