honood / objective-c-conventions

Coding conventions for Objective-C projects

These guidelines build on Apple's existing Coding Guidelines for Cocoa. Unless explicitly contradicted below, assume that all of Apple's guidelines apply as well.

Whitespace

• Tabs, not spaces.
• End files with a newline.
• Make liberal use of vertical whitespace to divide code into logical chunks.

Documentation and Organization

• All method declarations should be documented.
• Comments should be hard-wrapped at 80 characters.
• Comments should be Tomdoc-style.
• Use #pragma marks to categorize methods into functional groupings and protocol implementations, following this general structure:

#pragma mark Properties

@dynamic someProperty;

- (void)setCustomProperty:(id)value {}

#pragma mark Lifecycle

+ (id)objectWithThing:(id)thing {}
- (id)init {}

#pragma mark Drawing

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect) {}

#pragma mark Another functional grouping

#pragma mark GHSuperclass

- (void)someOverriddenMethod {}

#pragma mark NSCopying

- (id)copyWithZone:(NSZone *)zone {}

#pragma mark NSObject

- (NSString *)description {}

Declarations

• Never declare an ivar unless you need to change its type from its declared property.
• Don’t use line breaks in method declarations.
• Prefer exposing an immutable type for a property if it being mutable is an implementation detail. This is a valid reason to declare an ivar for a property.
• Always declare memory-management semantics even on readonly properties.
• Declare properties readonly if they are only set once in -init.
• Declare properties copy if they return immutable objects and aren't ever mutated in the implementation.
• Don't use @synthesize unless the compiler requires it. Note that optional properties in protocols must be explicitly synthesized in order to exist.
• Instance variables should be prefixed with an underscore (just like when implicitly synthesized).
• Don't put a space between an object type and the protocol it conforms to.

@property (attributes) id<Protocol> object;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSObject<Protocol> *object;

• C function declarations should have no space before the opening parenthesis, and should be namespaced just like a class.

void GHAwesomeFunction(BOOL hasSomeArgs);

• Constructors should generally return instancetype rather than id.
• Prefer C99 struct initialiser syntax to helper functions (such as CGRectMake()).

  CGRect rect = { .origin.x = 3.0, .origin.y = 12.0, .size.width = 15.0, .size.height = 80.0 };

Expressions

• Don't access an ivar unless you're in -init, -dealloc or a custom accessor.
• Use dot-syntax when invoking idempotent methods, including setters and class methods (like NSFileManager.defaultManager).
• Use object literals, boxed expressions, and subscripting over the older, grosser alternatives.
• Comparisons should be explicit for everything except BOOLs.
• Prefer positive comparisons to negative.
• Long form ternary operators should be wrapped in parentheses and only used for assignment and arguments.

Blah *a = (stuff == thing ? foo : bar);

• Short form, nil coalescing ternary operators should avoid parentheses.

Blah *b = thingThatCouldBeNil ?: defaultValue;

• There shouldn't be a space between a cast and the variable being cast.

NewType a = (NewType)b;

Control Structures

• Always surround if bodies with curly braces if there is an else. Single-line if bodies without an else should be on the same line as the if.
• All curly braces should begin on the same line as their associated statement. They should end on a new line.
• Put a single space after keywords and before their parentheses.
• Return and break early.
• No spaces between parentheses and their contents.

if (shitIsBad) return;

if (something == nil) {
	// do stuff
} else {
	// do other stuff
}

Blocks

• Blocks should have a space between their return type and name.
• Block definitions should omit their return type when possible.
• Block definitions should omit their arguments if they are void.
• Parameters in block types should be named unless the block is initialized immediately.

void (^blockName1)(void) = ^{
    // do some things
};

id (^blockName2)(id) = ^ id (id args) {
    // do some things
};

Literals

• Avoid making numbers a specific type unless necessary (for example, prefer 5 to 5.0, and 5.3 to 5.3f).
• The contents of array and dictionary literals should have a space on both sides.
• Dictionary literals should have no space between the key and the colon, and a single space between colon and value.

NSArray *theShit = @[ @1, @2, @3 ];

NSDictionary *keyedShit = @{ GHDidCreateStyleGuide: @YES };

• Longer or more complex literals should be split over multiple lines (optionally with a terminating comma):

NSArray *theShit = @[
    @"Got some long string objects in here.",
    [AndSomeModelObjects too],
    @"Moar strings."
];

NSDictionary *keyedShit = @{
    @"this.key": @"corresponds to this value",
    @"otherKey": @"remoteData.payload",
    @"some": @"more",
    @"JSON": @"keys",
    @"and": @"stuff",
};

Categories

• Categories should be named for the sort of functionality they provide. Don't create umbrella categories.
• Category methods should always be prefixed.
• If you need to expose private methods for subclasses or unit testing, create a class extension named Class+Private.