Is there an Objective-C equivalent to C#'s 'var' keyword?

Question

Huge proponent of using the 'var' keyword in C# for cases where it's very clear. For instance, rather than this...

ThisIsMyReallyLongFooClassName foo = new ThisIsMyReallyLongFooClassName();

I can type this...

var foo = new ThisIsMyReallyLongFooClassName();

...and I still have a strongly-typed variable. The two are, for all intents and purposes, equal. The latter is just more readable (again, because it's clear. There are cases where it isn't and 'var' shouldn't be used. I don't want this to become a discussion of that however.)

I'm wondering if Objective-C has anything similar.

Answer 1

Yes and no.

You can use id foo = ... which will always work, but you lose the type information.

If you really want something equivalent, you could use auto foo = ... from C++11, but then you have to compile your file as Objective-C++, which has many other side effects.

Convention is to just spell out your types; it's annoying, but unlike C++, C#, Java where templates/generics can make typenames very long, it's usually manageable in Objective-C.