private property in Objective C

Question

Is there a way to declare a private property in Objective C? The goal is to benefit from synthesized getters and setters implementing a certain memory management scheme, yet not exposed to public.

An attempt to declare a property within a category leads to an error:

@interface MyClass : NSObject {     NSArray *_someArray; }  ...  @end  @interface MyClass (private)  @property (nonatomic, retain) NSArray   *someArray;  @end  @implementation MyClass (private)  @synthesize someArray = _someArray; // ^^^ error here: @synthesize not allowed in a category's implementation  @end  @implementation MyClass  ...  @end 

Answer 1

I implement my private properties like this.

MyClass.m

@interface MyClass ()  @property (nonatomic, retain) NSArray *someArray;  @end  @implementation MyClass  @synthesize someArray;  ... 

That's all you need.