Namespace convention for Objective-C

Question

I'd like to group classes so they must be referenced like this:

Root.Web
Root.Mail
Root.Audio

Each of the above classes corresponds to a file:

Web.h
Mail.h
Audio.h

The goal is to use the above "Root" syntax rather than just:

Audio myAudio = [[Audio alloc] init];

Instead, it should look like:

Root.Audio myAudio = [[Root.Audio alloc] init];

Is Objective-C capable of doing that?

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

7

Objective-c doesn't support namespaces (as c doesn't) so you can't do that. To avoid potential collisions you can add your specific prefix to a class name

Here and here are the similar questions, may be you'll find them useful.

btw I think that if namespaces were supported they were addressed more in cpp-like way (like MyNamespace::MyClass, not MyNamespace.MyClass)

edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

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answered Nov 19 '09 at 07:56

Vladimir

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hallski · Answer 2 · 2009-11-19T15:58:47.437

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Not to my knowledge, what you would do in Objective-C (or C) to achieve that is to namespace the class name instead.

RootAudio *myAudio = [[RootAudio alloc] init];

edited Nov 19 '09 at 15:58

answered Nov 19 '09 at 07:48

hallski

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Thanks. I suppose that is the prefix naming convention mentioned in a later posting. – 4thSpace Nov 19 '09 at 14:56
Exactly, and if you look at the built in classes in Cocoa they use for example NS (NextStep), CA (CoreAnimation) etc. – hallski Nov 19 '09 at 16:03

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '09 at 07:48

Although Objective-C might be capable of doing that, if you make Root a singleton with predeclared or dynamically built properties, I would really recommend against it.

It goes against the standard of Objective-C. It shouldn't be necessary to use such a method.

Every language is constructed in a certain way and should be used accordingly. The above is not how objective-c is meant to be used.

Why would you want to use it that way?

If it is so that every object can access Root.Audio, in order to play a file, then why not make Audio a singleton, or have a class method on Audio that can store and retrieve instances that you have declared? Every object in your run-time can access class methods..

Namespace convention for Objective-C

3 Answers3