Expose a private Objective-C method or property to subclasses

Question

According to some official talk, a class in Objective-C should only expose public methods and properties in its header:

@interface MyClass : NSObject

@prope         


        

Answer 1

I see good answers for making properties visible, but I don't see exposing the methods addressed very clearly in any of these answers. Here is how I have successfully exposed private methods to the subclass using a Category:

SomeSuperClass.m:

@implementation SomeSuperClass

-(void)somePrivateMethod:(NSString*)someArgument {
    ...
}

SomeChildClass.h

@interface SomeChildClass : SomeSuperClass

SomeChildClass.m

@interface SomeSuperClass (exposePrivateMethod)
-(void)somePrivateMethod:(NSString*)someArgument;
@end

@implementation SomeChildClass

-(void)doSomething {
    [super somePrivateMethod:@"argument"];
}

@end