Are static variables in Objective-C methods shared across instances?
I want to clarify whether different instances of an Objective-C class share static variables that occur inside methods, or if each instance gets its own copy:
- (void) myMethod {
static int myVar = 0;
}
Solution 1:
Static locals are shared between method calls AND instances. You can think of them as globals which are visible only inside their methods:
- (void) showVars {
int i = 0;
static int j = 0;
i++; j++;
NSLog(@"i = %i ; j = %i", i, j);
}
[...]
[obj1 showVars];
[obj2 showVars];
[obj1 showVars];
[obj2 showVars];
Above calls on 2 different instances will output:
i = 1 ; j = 1
i = 1 ; j = 2
i = 1 ; j = 3
i = 1 ; j = 4
Solution 2:
It's the same as a static variable in C; the instances will share the variable. If you want each instance to have its own copy, you want an instance variable (declared in the @interface
block).