Accessing private variable in Category results in linker error

Question

EDIT: I\'m not going to do this, I now realize how dangerous this can be. But, the question stays for purely academic purposes.

I\'m trying to implement a category o

Answer 1

You shouldn't really, but access it like a pointer to a member of a struct:

-(NSMutableArray *)displayedItems {
  return self->_displayedItems;
}

This is a fragile thing to do, as I'm sure you're aware however ;)

UPDATE: Since you've mentioned the above doesn't work, try dropping down to the runtime:

-(NSMutableArray *)displayedItems {
        NSMutableArray *displayedItems;
        object_getInstanceVariable(self, "_displayedItems", (void *)&displayedItems);
        return displayedItems;
}

(Tested, works)