Get property name as a string

aryaxt picture aryaxt · Jul 7, 2011 · Viewed 24.4k times · Source

I need a way to pass a property and get the name assigned to it. Any suggestions?

@property (nonatomic, retain) MyObject *crazyObject;

NSString *str = SOME_WAY_TO_GET_PROPERTY_NAME(crazyObject);
// Above method should return @"crazyObject"

Answer

Oscar Gomez picture Oscar Gomez · Jul 7, 2011

You can try this:

unsigned int propertyCount = 0;
objc_property_t * properties = class_copyPropertyList([self class], &propertyCount);

NSMutableArray * propertyNames = [NSMutableArray array];
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < propertyCount; ++i) {
  objc_property_t property = properties[i];
  const char * name = property_getName(property);
  [propertyNames addObject:[NSString stringWithUTF8String:name]];
}
free(properties);
NSLog(@"Names: %@", propertyNames);