Can I initiate an ivar indirectly? - objective-c

Question

I'm trying to initiate my ivar like this:
Declared like this in h-file
#interface MyClass: {
UITextView *_myTextView;
}
then created like this in the m-file
- (id)init {
self = [super init];
if(self) {
[self initTextView:_myTextView];
}
return self;
}
- (void)initTextView:(UITextView *)textView {
textView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
...
}
_myTextView will still be nil afterwards. Why is that and what should I do it to make it work? I've got ARC enabled.
[EDIT]
This works. Thanks all!
- (id)init {
self = [super init];
if (self) {
_textView1 = [self createTextView];
_textView2 = [self createTextView];
_textView3 = [self createTextView];
}
return self;
}
- (UITextView *)createTextView {
UITextView *textView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
...
return textView;
}

Answer 1

You need to always refer to instance variables using:
self.textView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
Also use a name other than initTextView as methods starting with init have special meaning in Objective-C.
If you want to use the same code to initialize multiple text view controls, then use code like this:
- (UITextView *)createTextView
{
UITextView *textView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
textView.something = whatever;
...
return textView;
}
And then use it like this:
- (id)init {
self = [super init];
if(self)
{
self.textView1 = [self createTextView];
self.textView2 = [self createTextView];
...
self.textViewN = [self createTextView];
}
}

Answer 2

In [self initTextView:_myTextView]; you pass the current value of _myTextView (which is nil) to your initTextView: method. To set the instance variable, you need a pointer to a pointer.
- (id)init {
self = [super init];
if (self) {
[self setupTextView:&_myTextView];
}
return self;
}
- (void)setupTextView:(UITextView * __strong *)textView {
*textView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
...
}
I also renamed the initTextView: method to setupTextView, as methods starting with init are expected to behave like other init methods in ARC.

Answer 3

- (id)init {
self = [super init];
if(self) {
[self initTextView];
}
}
- (void)initTextView{
_myTextView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
...
}
if you want to call initTextView for several text views , you can code like this :
- (id)init {
self = [super init];
if(self) {
_myTextView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
[self initTextView:_myTextView];
}
}
- (void)initTextView:(UITextView *)textView{
//setup the textView
...
}