Question about property:STARTMTH in dimension CATEGORY

Question

Hi,
There is a default property "startmth" in dimension CATEGORY. It exist in the default application APPSHELL, but I can't find any
document for this property. Does anyone know what this property use for?
Regards,
David Cho

Answer 1

First off, it's not a property. It's a static variable. And the code you have isn't a good idea. Static variables should NOT be set via instance methods.
Think about the following code:
// In some other class
Bar x = [[Bar alloc] init];
Bar y = [[Bar alloc] init];
Think about what just happened. In the 'foo' class you have now created two 'foo' objects and the first one is now leaked.
The proper way to initialize static variables is with the 'initialize' class method. This is only ever called once, the first time the class is referenced.
static Class foo;
@implementation Bar
+ (void)initialize {
foo = [[Bar alloc] init];
- init {
// Do nothing with 'foo'
+ (Bar)getObject {
return foo;
- (void)dealloc {
// Do nothing with 'foo'
The only downside, sort of, is that 'foo' is never dealloc'ed except when the app exits. But this isn't typically a problem.