Getting object name in Objective-c

Question

suppose i have a class Foo and an instance of this class myFoo:

Foo *myFoo;

is there any method "dispalyFooObjectName" that can display the name of the object, for exmample :

NSLog(@"i was called from %s", [myFoo dispalyFooObjectName]);

and the result will be :

i was called from myFoo

This sort of reliance on variable names is a bit worrying... what are you trying to achieve? — dreamlax
– dreamlax, Commented Apr 4, 2011 at 10:14

Joachim Sauer · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-04 09:39:36Z

6

In most programming languages objects don't have names. Just because some variable myFoo references your object, doesn't mean that your object is "called" myFoo.

And in most C-based languages variable names are not represented in the final executables at all (except for the names of external symbols).

So the short answer is that there's no way to get to that information.

If you want some "name", then you should add a name field to your Foo type.

answered Apr 4, 2011 at 9:39

Joachim Sauer

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1 Comment

tarek Over a year ago

Thanks, but is there any useful tips that i can use to log such information (define a macro?)

Rahul Vyas · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-12 10:06:10Z

-1

you can try this. override -(NSstring*)description method like this

- (NSString*)description {
     return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"I'm called from foo"];//You can also print object's properties description here.
  }

and use like this

 NSLog(@"my Foo object %@",[myFoo description]);

answered Apr 12, 2011 at 10:06

Rahul Vyas

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