Question

Hey,
I am new to programming I wanted to know why is it always [self method];? I mean why is it that way could someone explain me why is it self and what is going on in the background? sorry if it is a stupid question

thanks,
TC

Answer 1

Basically, what self refers to is the object that you’re currently in the context of. [self somemethod] means that you’re invoking a method named somemethod in the class that self was initialized as.

For example, if you were to do something like this:

Foo *f = [[Foo alloc]init];
[f someMethod];

You’d be invoking someMethod on the Foo instance.

But if you’re working inside of the class Foo, self serves as an explicit reference to the current object. In this case, you’d simply use [self someMethod] to invoke someMethod.

-(id) init {
    if (self = [super init]) {
        [self someMethod];
    }
    ...
}

-(void) someMethod { }

Does that help?