Question

I’m not really experienced with Objective-C. Here is a problem I encountered.

When I want to define a pointer for a particular instance of a class, I can

NSString* foo;

But is it possible to define pointers for instances of classes like this?

x* hotdog;  //"x" is the type of pointer hotdog is

hotdog = NSString;  //now points to NSString

hotdog* foo;  //an instance of NSString is created

hotdog = UIView;  //now points to UIView

hotdog* foo;  //an instance of UIView is created

How to define the class-pointer hotdog? (what should I replace x with?)

Answer 1

If you want a pointer to an object of a type that’s not yet known at compile-time (similar to dynamic in C#), use id:

id hotdog;
hotdog = [[NSString alloc] init];
hotdog = [[NSArray alloc] init];

Only do this when you really need it. If you use it everywhere, your code can easily become a mess since you’ll lose track of the type of the variable.

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At first I misunderstood your question. I’ll leave my old answer here just in case future visitors need it.

The type of pointers to classes is Class and to get an object of that type use +[NSObject class].

Class hotdog = [NSString class]; // now points to NSString
NSString *myString = [[hotdog alloc] init]; // create instance of NSString

hotdog = [NSArray class]; // now points to NSArray
NSArray *myArray = [[hotdog alloc] init]; // create instance of NSArray