Is it possible to get an array of all of an object's properties in Objective C? Basically, what I want to do is something like this:
- (void)save {
NSArray *propertyArray = [self propertyNames];
for (NSString *propertyName in propertyArray) {
[self doSomethingCoolWithValue:[self valueForKey:propertyName]];
}
}
Is this possible? It seems like it should be, but I can't figure out what method my propertyNames up there should be.
I did some more digging, and found what I wanted in the Objective-C Runtime Programming Guide. Here's how I've implemented the what I wanted to do in my original question, drawing heavily from Apple's sample code:
#import <Foundation/NSObjCRuntime.h>
#import <objc/runtime.h>
- (void)save {
id currentClass = [self class];
NSString *propertyName;
unsigned int outCount, i;
objc_property_t *properties = class_copyPropertyList(currentClass, &outCount);
for (i = 0; i < outCount; i++) {
objc_property_t property = properties[i];
propertyName = [NSString stringWithCString:property_getName(property)];
[self doSomethingCoolWithValue:[self valueForKey:propertyName]];
}
}
I hope this will help someone else looking for a way to access the names of an object's properties programatically.
class_copyPropertyList this questions has been answered several times on StackOverflow in various forms, but unless you know the answer already, if hard to know what to search for... ;)
stringWithCString: is deprecated. I'm using stringWithCString:encoding: with NSUTF8StringEncoding encoding now. Just a note. :)dont forget
free(properties);
after the loop or you will get a leak. The apple documentation is clear:
An array of pointers of type objc_property_t describing the properties declared by the class. Any properties declared by superclasses are not included. The array contains *outCount pointers followed by a NULL terminator. You must free the array with free().
