[Biococoa-dev] unichar question
John Timmer
jtimmer at bellatlantic.net
Fri Aug 20 22:45:56 EDT 2004
> You are using the following code the access a variable:
>
> - (NSString *) name{
> return [[name copy] autorelease];
> }
>
>
> Why not just use:
>
> - (NSString *) name{
> return name;
> }
>
> Is there a particular reason why you use this format?
If you return a pointer to the actual name (as in the 2nd case), it's
possible to actually manipulate the contents of memory there in C. By
returning a copy, you protect the actual instance variable.
> Oh, and what's the difference between symbolString and
> savableRepresentation?
In the nucleotide cases, none. In the sequence classes, there will be. I
just thought it would be convenient to provide a single method signature
throughout the project so that people don't have to think about what to call
when they need something like that.
Cheers,
JT
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