Concept
Objective-C
Related concepts (63)
Distributed object communication
In a distributed computing environment, distributed object communication realizes communication between distributed objects. The main role is to allow objects to access data and invoke methods on remote objects (objects residing in non-local memory space). Invoking a method on a remote object is known as remote method invocation (RMI) or remote invocation, and is the object-oriented programming analog of a remote procedure call (RPC). The widely used approach on how to implement the communication channel is realized by using stubs and skeletons.
Object-based language
The term object-based language may be used in a technical sense to describe any programming language that uses the idea of encapsulating state and operations inside objects. Object-based languages need not support inheritance or subtyping, but those that do are also termed object-oriented. Object-based languages that do not support inheritance or subtyping are usually not considered to be true object-oriented languages.
Interface Builder
Interface Builder is a software development application for Apple's macOS operating system. It is part of Xcode (formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa and Carbon developers to create interfaces for applications using a graphical user interface. The resulting interface is stored as a .nib file, short for NeXT Interface Builder, or more recently, as an XML-based .xib file. Interface Builder is descended from the NeXTSTEP development software of the same name.
Increment and decrement operators
Increment and decrement operators are unary operators that increase or decrease their operand by one. They are commonly found in imperative programming languages. C-like languages feature two versions (pre- and post-) of each operator with slightly different semantics. In languages syntactically derived from B (including C and its various derivatives), the increment operator is written as ++ and the decrement operator is written as --. Several other languages use inc(x) and dec(x) functions.
Xcode
Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 14.3.1, released on June 1, 2023, and is available free of charge via the Mac App Store and the Apple Developer website. Registered developers can also download preview releases and prior versions of the suite through the Apple Developer website.
Automatic Reference Counting
Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) is a memory management feature of the Clang compiler providing automatic reference counting for the Objective-C and Swift programming languages. At compile time, it inserts into the object code messages retain and release which increase and decrease the reference count at run time, marking for deallocation those objects when the number of references to them reaches zero. ARC differs from tracing garbage collection in that there is no background process that deallocates the objects asynchronously at runtime.
Type introspection
In computing, type introspection is the ability of a program to examine the type or properties of an object at runtime. Some programming languages possess this capability. Introspection should not be confused with reflection, which goes a step further and is the ability for a program to manipulate the values, metadata, properties, and functions of an object at runtime. Some programming languages also possess that capability (e.g., Java, Python, Julia, and Go). Type introspection is a core feature of Ruby.
Swift (programming language)
Swift is a high-level general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. and the open-source community. First released in June 2014, Swift was developed as a replacement for Apple's earlier programming language Objective-C, as Objective-C had been largely unchanged since the early 1980s and lacked modern language features. Swift works with Apple's Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, and a key aspect of Swift's design was the ability to interoperate with the huge body of existing Objective-C code developed for Apple products over the previous decades.
OpenStep
OpenStep is a defunct object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification for a legacy object-oriented operating system, with the basic goal of offering a NeXTSTEP-like environment on non-NeXTSTEP operating systems. OpenStep was principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems, to allow advanced application development on Sun's operating systems, specifically Solaris. NeXT produced a version of OpenStep for its own Mach-based Unix, stylized as OPENSTEP, as well as a version for Windows NT.
Property (programming)
A property, in some object-oriented programming languages, is a special sort of class member, intermediate in functionality between a field (or data member) and a method. The syntax for reading and writing of properties is like for fields, but property reads and writes are (usually) translated to 'getter' and 'setter' method calls. The field-like syntax is easier to read and write than many method calls, yet the interposition of method calls "under the hood" allows for data validation, active updating (e.g.