11.5 Protocol definitions

In Objective-C, protocols play the role that interfaces play in Object Pascal, but there are some differences:

• Protocol methods can be marked optional, i. e. the class implementing the protocol can decide not to implement these methods.

• Protocols can inherit from multiple other protocols.

Objective-C classes can indicate which protocols they implement in the class definition, as could be seen in the syntax diagram for Objective-C classes.

The following diagram shows how to declare a protocol. It starts with the objcprotocol keyword:

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Protocol type






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As in the case of Objective-Pascal classes, the external specifier tells the compiler that the declaration is an import of a protocol defined elsewhere. For methods, almost the same rules apply as for methods in the Objective-Pascal class declarations. The exception is that message specifiers must be present.

The required and optional specifiers before a series of method declarations are optional. If none is specified, required is assumed. The following is a definition of a protocol:

type
  MyProtocol = objccprotocol
    // default is required
    procedure aRequiredMethod;
      message 'aRequiredMethod';
  optional
    procedure anOptionalMethodWithPara(para: longint);
      message 'anOptionalMethodWithPara:';
    procedure anotherOptionalMethod;
      message 'anotherOptionalMethod';
  required
    function aSecondRequiredMethod: longint;
      message 'aSecondRequiredMethod';
  end;

  MyClassImplementingProtocol = objcclass(NSObject,MyProtocol)
    procedure aRequiredMethod;
    procedure anOptionalMethodWithPara(para: longint);
    function aSecondRequiredMethod: longint;
  end;

Note that in the class declaration, the message specifier was omitted. The compiler (and runtime) can deduce it from the protocol definition.