Cocoa® Programming

Typed Storage

Many programming languages provide built-in data types for the storage of common values. The C language contains only the bare minimum of built-in types that map well to the hardware limitations of almost every CPU family. The philosophy of the C language is to implement as little as possible in the language itself and execute complex ideas in libraries. As a small extension of C, Objective-C adheres to the same philosophy. Objective-C adds only a small number of standard data types, and they are all defined in terms of C built-in types such as char * and pointers to structures. Apple’s Foundation framework contains classes that enhance the basic capabilities of Objective-C and manage data types that are more complex and powerful ...