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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-28T00:17:20+00:00

If I control-drag a UI element (for instance, a UITableView) from my NIB to

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If I control-drag a UI element (for instance, a UITableView) from my NIB to my .h file it will generate code like this:

// .h
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UITableView *tableView;

// .m
@synthesize tableView;

However, many people seem to think that this would be preferable in the .m file

@synthesize tableView = _tableView;

The reasons are that it forces you to access the ivar via the property setters and getters (or use the dot-syntax self.foo) rather than directly. And it avoids naming conflicts in method names… for instance the tableView in 

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath

Why then does the auto-generated code not follow this convention?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The pace of evolution of Objective C and the Cocoa framework has increased since the introduction of iOS. The answer to this question and insights into properties in Objective C 2.0 are discussed here: Why rename synthesized properties in iOS with leading underscores?

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