Saturday, December 22, 2012

Variable property attributes or Modifiers in iOS

Variable property attributes or Modifiers

Property Attributes Indicate Data Accessibility and Storage Considerations

Use Accessor Methods to Get or Set Property Values

01. atomic //default
02. nonatomic
03. strong=retain //default
04. weak= unsafe_unretained
05. retain
06. assign //default
07. unsafe_unretained
08. copy
09. readonly
10. readwrite         //default

01. atomic 
-Atomic is thread safe.
-but it is slow in performance
-atomic is default behavior
-it is not actually a keyword.
Example :

@property (retain) NSString *name;

@synthesize name;

02. nonatomic
-Nonatomic means multiple thread access the variable(dynamic type).
-Nonatomic is thread unsafe.
-but it is fast in performance


@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;

@synthesize name;


Suppose there is an atomic string property called "name", and if you call [self setName:@"A"] from thread A, 
call [self setName:@"B"] from thread B, and call [self name] from thread C, then all operation on different thread will be performed serially which means if one thread is executing setter or getter, then other threads will wait. This makes property "name" read/write safe but if another thread D calls [name release] simultaneously then this operation might produce a crash because there is no setter/getter call involved here. Which means an object is read/write safe (ATOMIC) but not thread safe as another threads can simultaneously send any type of messages to the object. Developer should ensure thread safety for such objects.

If the property "name" was nonatomic, then all threads in above example - A,B, C and D will execute simultaneously producing any unpredictable result. In case of atomic, Either one of A, B or C will execute first but D can still execute in parallel.

03. strong (iOS4 = retain )
-it says "keep this in the heap until I don't point to it anymore"
-in other words " I'am the owner, you cannot dealloc this before aim fine with that same as retain"
-You use strong only if you need to retain the object.
-By default all instance variables and local variables are strong pointers.
-We generally use strong for UIViewControllers (UI item's parents)


@property (strong, nonatomic) ViewController *viewController;

@synthesize viewController;

04. weak (iOS4 = unsafe_unretained )
-it says "keep this as long as someone else points to it strongly"
-the same thing as assign, no retain or release
-A "weak" reference is a reference that you do not retain.
-We generally use weak for IBOutlets (UIViewController's Childs).This works because the child object only 
needs to exist as long as the parent object does.
-a weak reference is a reference that does not protect the referenced object from collection by a garbage collector.
-Weak is essentially assign, a unretained property. Except the when the object is deallocated the weak pointer is automatically set to nil

Example :

@property (weak, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIButton *myButton;

@synthesize myButton;


Imagine our object is a dog, and that the dog wants to run away (be deallocated).
Strong pointers are like a leash on the dog. As long as you have the leash attached to the dog, the dog will not run away. If five people attach their leash to one dog, (five strong pointers to one object), then the dog will not run away until all five leashes are detached.
Weak pointers, on the other hand, are like little kids pointing at the dog and saying "Look! A dog!" As long as the dog is still on the leash, the little kids can still see the dog, and they'll still point to it. As soon as all the leashes are detached, though, the dog runs away no matter how many little kids are pointing to it.
As soon as the last strong pointer (leash) no longer points to an object, the object will be deallocated, and all weak pointers will be zeroed out.
When we use weak?
The only time you would want to use weak, is if you wanted to avoid retain cycles 
(e.g. the parent retains the child and the child retains the parent so neither is ever released).

05. retain = strong
-it is retained, old value is released and it is assigned
-retain specifies the new value should be sent -retain on assignment and the old value sent -release
-retain is the same as strong.
-apple says if you write retain it will auto converted/work like strong only.
-methods like "alloc" include an implicit "retain"


@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;

@synthesize name;

06. assign 
-assign is the default and simply performs a variable assignment
-assign is a property attribute that tells the compiler how to synthesize the property's setter implementation
-I would use assign for C primitive properties and weak for weak references to Objective-C objects.


@property (nonatomic, assign) NSString *address;

@synthesize address;

07. unsafe_unretained

-unsafe_unretained is an ownership qualifier that tells ARC how to insert retain/release calls
-unsafe_unretained is the ARC version of assign.


@property (nonatomic, unsafe_unretained) NSString *nickName;

@synthesize nickName;

08. copy
-copy is required when the object is mutable.
-copy specifies the new value should be sent -copy on assignment and the old value sent -release.
-copy is  like retain returns an object which you must explicitly release (e.g., in dealloc) in non-garbage collected environments.
-if you use copy then you still need to release that in dealloc.


@property (nonatomic, copy) NSArray *myArray;

@synthesize myArray;

09. readonly
-declaring your property as readonly you tell compiler to not generate setter method automatically.
-Indicates that the property is read-only.
-If you specify readonly, only a getter method is required in the @implementation block. If you use the @synthesize directive in 
the @implementation block, only the getter method is synthesized. Moreover, if you attempt to assign a value using the dot syntax, 
you get a compiler error.


@property (nonatomic, readonly) NSString *name;

@synthesize name;

10. readwrite 
-setter and getter generated.
-Indicates that the property should be treated as read/write.
-This attribute is the default.
-Both a getter and setter method are required in the @implementation block. If you use the @synthesize directive in the implementation 
block, the getter and setter methods are synthesized.


@property (nonatomic, readwrite) NSString *name;

@synthesize name;


  1. Replies
    1. bahut bahut Shukriya Bhaijaan :)

    2. Hay this is very usefull document for clearing basic concepts. . .

  2. much appreciated

  3. very good tutorial

  4. Thanks Buddy For Posting. Its Helpful

    1. My pleasure dear :) Learn and Share , Happy Life !!

  5. Really nice and much helpful post... Thanks a ton !!

  6. Really nice and helpful post... Thanks a ton !!!

  7. Really very nice post

  8. Really great afford

  9. Good Tutorial .. Help a lot to understand....

  10. Really nice and helpful post... Thanks a lot !!!

  11. this is nice work and grate to exaplain dud

  12. Really cool explanations.. thanks a lot..

  13. Very cool explanations.. thanks a lot..

  14. great work dear,Basic concept for newcomers very helpful ...


  15. I do appreciate the writeup on this, thanks! One FYI though; my understanding is that atomic doesn't guarantee thread safety, just that the complete value is accessible.

  16. really nice , much helpful specially for me dnt knw about others ;)