Question

I’m developing a simple app with multiple views.
I have a base view and a second view, called after the base.
The base view serves as a delegate for the second view.

I would like, in my second view, to set and retrieve the value of a property in the baseView (the ‘name’).
Since, in the secondView, the delegate is a secondViewDelegate object, it doesn’t have a ‘name’ method.

baseView.h (skipping imports):

@interface baseView : UIViewController <secondViewDelegate> {
}
@property (retain) NSString *name;

@end

secondView.h (skipping imports):

@protocol secondViewDelegate;

@interface secondView : UIViewController{
}
@property (nonatomic,assign) id <secondViewDelegate> delegate;

@end

@protocol secondViewDelegate 
- (void) secondViewDidFinish:(secondView *)controller;
@end

What is the usual approach here?
Do I really need to implement a getter and a setter for the protocol? Like:

@protocol secondViewDelegate 
- (void) secondViewDidFinish:(secondView *)controller;
- (NSString *)getName;
- (void)setName:(NSString *)newName;
@end

Or is there any good way to actually access the baseView property, or at least get the instance? (Is it a good idea?)

I’m still pretty new to iOS development, in case it isn’t obvious.

Answer 1

Since you go to the trouble of defining a delegate protocol (a good thing IMO), you should stick to your design decision and add the property to the protocol instead of looking for a “clever” solution that makes the warning go away. You can use @property for the protocol declaration, like this:

@protocol secondViewDelegate
@property(retain) NSString* name;
@end

If it doesn’ feel good to have the property in your protocol, then you should probably review your design decisions: What is secondViewDelegate supposed to do, or why does secondView need to set the property.