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Before we study basic building blocks of the Objective-C programming language, let us look a bare minimum Objective-C program structure so that we can take it as a reference in upcoming chapters.
Objective-C Hello World Example
A Objective-C program basically consists of the following parts −
- Preprocessor Commands
- Interface
- Implementation
- Method
- Variables
- Statements & Expressions
- Comments
Let us look at a simple code that would print the words “Hello World” −
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h> @interface SampleClass:NSObject - (void)sampleMethod; @end @implementation SampleClass - (void)sampleMethod { NSLog(@"Hello, World! n"); } @end int main() { /* my first program in Objective-C */ SampleClass *sampleClass = [[SampleClass alloc]init]; [sampleClass sampleMethod]; return 0; }
Let us look various parts of the above program −
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The first line of the program #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> is a preprocessor command, which tells a Objective-C compiler to include Foundation.h file before going to actual compilation.
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The next line @interface SampleClass:NSObject shows how to create an interface. It inherits NSObject, which is the base class of all objects.
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The next line – (void)sampleMethod; shows how to declare a method.
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The next line @end marks the end of an interface.
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The next line @implementation SampleClass shows how to implement the interface SampleClass.
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The next line – (void)sampleMethod{} shows the implementation of the sampleMethod.
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The next line @end marks the end of an implementation.
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The next line int main() is the main function where program execution begins.
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The next line /*…*/ will be ignored by the compiler and it has been put to add additional comments in the program. So such lines are called comments in the program.
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The next line NSLog(…) is another function available in Objective-C which causes the message “Hello, World!” to be displayed on the screen.
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The next line return 0; terminates main()function and returns the value 0.
Compile & Execute Objective-C Program
Now when we compile and run the program, we will get the following result.
2017-10-06 07:48:32.020 demo[65832] Hello, World!
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