Constants in Objective-C

Question

I\'m developing a Cocoa application, and I\'m using constant NSStrings as ways to store key names for my preferences.

I understand this is a good idea b

Answer 1

I myself have a header dedicated to declaring constant NSStrings used for preferences like so:

extern NSString * const PPRememberMusicList;
extern NSString * const PPLoadMusicAtListLoad;
extern NSString * const PPAfterPlayingMusic;
extern NSString * const PPGotoStartupAfterPlaying;

Then declaring them in the accompanying .m file:

NSString * const PPRememberMusicList = @"Remember Music List";
NSString * const PPLoadMusicAtListLoad = @"Load music when loading list";
NSString * const PPAfterPlayingMusic = @"After playing music";
NSString * const PPGotoStartupAfterPlaying = @"Go to startup pos. after playing";

This approach has served me well.

Edit: Note that this works best if the strings are used in multiple files. If only one file uses it, you can just do #define kNSStringConstant @"Constant NSString" in the .m file that uses the string.