Should I Use self Keyword (Properties) In The Implementation?

Question

I believe I understand properties for the most part. My question is, if I have a property for an instance variable, and I am setting or retrieving it from within a method in

Answer 1

First, you should not use setters or getters in init or dealloc according to Apple documentation (and for good reasons).

Other than that, you should generally use the setter for setting the variable if there is one.

Usually I do not bother using the getter for accessing the ivar from within the implementation, but there are times when it is necessary. In particular, if you expect the getter might do some caclulation or checking, or if you want to allow for subclasses to override the behaviour.

Certainly, using the getter in the implementation is more general and safer, but it is also typically pointless and wasteful. Make your choice.

Using the setter is important as it gives an opertunity for other code to observe the changes (Key Value Observing), as well as subclasses a chance to override the setter and make any other adjustments required.

However one thing I highly recommend is to use a different name for your ivar and your property. The normal convention is an underscore prefix (_), although I personally use i_ as the prefix to avoid any confusion with Apple's private usage. That way you cannot accidently use the wrong one:

self.name // use property
i_name // use ivar
self.i_name // syntax error
name // syntax error