Question

I was wondering if I could import a header file, but not include any of that header file’s included headers.

Suppose I have Class A that imports Class B. In Class B, I import Class C. Is there any way I can hide Class C from Class A?

Answer 1

No, you cannot do that: once you import a file, all its imports come in as well.

However, if you want to use only ClassA, you can forward-declare it in your own header, instead of importing ClassA‘s header:

@class ClassA;

Now you can make variables of type ClassA*, use ClassA* as return type or a parameter type, etc. At the same time, dependencies of ClassA‘s header will not be loaded.

In general, it is a good idea to reduce the number of headers that you import inside your header, for example by moving imports related to implementation (rather than the interface) into the .m file, and using class extensions.