using objective c runtime functions in iOS app

Question

I want to get at the types of the properties of my objective C classes. I see I can do this by using the runtime function property_getAttributes(property), which returns a C string like this:

    T@"UIColor",&,N,VsomeColor_   // ivar was UIColor* someColor_; property was (nonatomic, retain) UIColor* someColor; 

or this:

    Tf,N,vfontSize_   // ivar was CGFloat fontsize_; property was (nonatomic) CGFloat fontSize;

I can then parse that string, ie look at the part after the initial T and before the following comma.

My question is -- is doing it this way likely to be stable? Or is there a better way?

Answer 1

property_getAttributes is part of the Objective-C runtime, as described here .

If you want to gain some kind of introspection about ObjC classes, it is the way to go. I don't think this is unstable, since the Objective-C runtime itself is quite stable. Furthermore there is an official guide (see link above) so you can trust it to be as stable as any other official Apple API.