CODEWITHSUNDEEP
objective-c
user4951
user4951

Reputation: 33138

Where do you declare a constant in Objective-C?

I declared a constant in a header file const double EARTH_RADIUS=6353; that is imported to various other headers and I got a linker error. 

Ld /Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/BadgerNew.app/BadgerNew normal i386
    cd /Users/Teguh/Dropbox/badgers/BadgerNew
    setenv MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET 10.6
    setenv PATH "/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/usr/bin:/Developer/usr/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"
    /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/usr/bin/llvm-g++-4.2 -arch i386 -isysroot /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk -L/Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator -F/Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator -filelist /Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Intermediates/BadgerNew.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/BadgerNew.build/Objects-normal/i386/BadgerNew.LinkFileList -mmacosx-version-min=10.6 -Xlinker -objc_abi_version -Xlinker 2 -framework CoreLocation -framework UIKit -framework Foundation -framework CoreGraphics -framework CoreData -o /Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/BadgerNew.app/BadgerNew

ld: duplicate symbol _EARTH_RADIUS in /Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Intermediates/BadgerNew.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/BadgerNew.build/Objects-normal/i386/NearbyIsiKota.o and /Users/Teguh/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/BadgerNew-bjopcgcgsjkcvcevflfbvsjwfgnu/Build/Intermediates/BadgerNew.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/BadgerNew.build/Objects-normal/i386/FrontPageofBadger.o for architecture i386
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

Basically I want the constant to be available for all classes on my project. Where should I declare it?

Upvotes: 56

Views: 74385

Answers (4)

Kyle Clegg
Kyle Clegg

Reputation: 39480

Best practice would be to declare it in your .h and .m files. See Constants in Objective-C for a very detailed set of answers regarding this same question.

Upvotes: 1

spacebiker
spacebiker

Reputation: 3875

There are two ways to accomplish this:

1st option- As previous replies pointed, in the .h file:

myfile.h
extern const int MY_CONSTANT_VARIABLE;

and in myfile.m define them

myfile.m    
const int MY_CONSTANT_VARIABLE = 5;

2nd option- My favourite:

myfile.h
static const int MY_CONSTANT_VARIABLE = 5 ;

Upvotes: 65

Mahesh
Mahesh

Reputation: 34665

Declare it in a source file and have external linkage to it( using extern keyword ) so as to use in all other source files.

Upvotes: 4

Dan F
Dan F

Reputation: 17732

You can declare in the header, define it in a code file. Simply declare it as 

extern const double EARTH_RADIUS;

then in a .m file somewhere (usually the .m for the .h you declared it in)

const double EARTH_RADIUS = 6353;

Upvotes: 98

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