What does the NS prefix mean

Question

Many classes in Cocoa Cocoa Touch have the NS prefix  What does it mean

User · Accepted Answer

It s from the NeXTSTEP heritage

User · Answer

The original code for the Cocoa frameworks came from the NeXTSTEP libraries Foundation and AppKit  those names are still used by Apple s Cocoa frameworks   and the NextStep engineers chose to prefix their symbols with NS   Because Objective-C is an extension of C and thus doesn t have namespaces like in C    symbols must be prefixed with a unique prefix so that they don t collide  This is particularly important for symbols defined in a framework   If you are writing an application  such that your code is only likely ever to use your symbols  you don t have to worry about this  But if you re writing a framework or library for others  use  you should also prefix your symbols with a  unique prefix  CocoaDev has a page where many developers in the Cocoa community have listed their  chosen  prefixes  You may also find this SO discussion helpful

User · Answer

From Apple s developer docs      Historical Note  If you   re wondering why so many of the classes you encounter have an NS prefix  it   s because of the past history of Cocoa and Cocoa Touch  Cocoa began life as the collected frameworks used to build apps for the NeXTStep operating system  When Apple purchased NeXT back in 1996  much of NeXTStep was incorporated into OS X  including the existing class names  Cocoa Touch was introduced as the iOS equivalent of Cocoa  some classes are available in both Cocoa and Cocoa Touch  though there are also a large number of classes unique to each platform    Two-letter prefixes like NS and UI  for User Interface elements on iOS  are reserved for use by Apple    Source  Programming with Objective-C

User · Answer

Bill Bumgarner aka  bbum  who should know  posted on the CocoaBuilder mailing list in 2005      Sun entered the picture a bit after the NS prefix had come into play  The NS prefix came about in public APIs during the move from NeXTSTEP 3 0 to NeXTSTEP 4 0  also known as OpenStep    Prior to 4 0  a   handful of symbols used the NX prefix  but most classes provided by   the system libraries were not prefixed at all -- List  Hashtable    View  etc      It seems that everyone agrees that the prefix NX  for NeXT  was used until 1993 1994  and Apple s docs say      The official OpenStep API  published in September of 1994  was the first to split the API between Foundation and Application Kit and the first to use the    NS    prefix

User · Answer

From Cocoa  API  Wikipedia      emphasis added        Cocoa classes begin with the acronym  NS   standing either for the   NeXT-Sun creation of OpenStep  or for the original proprietary term   for the OpenStep framework  NeXTSTEP   NSString  NSArray  etc       Foundation Kit  or more commonly simply Foundation  first appeared in   OpenStep  On Mac OS X  it is based on Core Foundation  Foundation is a   generic object-oriented library providing string and value   manipulation  containers and iteration  distributed computing  run   loops  and other functions that are not directly tied to the graphical   user interface  The  NS  prefix  used for all classes and constants in   the framework  comes from Cocoa s OPENSTEP heritage  which was jointly   developed by NeXT and Sun

User · Answer

Basically NS comes from NextSTEP  the original operating system that became Mac OS X when Apple acquired Next   I want to explain something else and this is why exactly it s needed   In C   there are namespaces and almost anything goes in std  This is why you have std  string   Namespaces are used so it s harder for you to make a mistake and you can write your own class string without conflicting with the system one   Objective-C is superset of C  but it doesn t include namespaces and for the same reason above all system classes are prefixed with NS or some other strange prefix   This thing is the same of how all DirectX classes are prefixed with D3D and how all OpenGL classes are prefixed with gl   This means that you should not use NS to name your own classes and when you see NS  CA in Core Animation or CG in Core Graphics you understand that this is a call to a system framework   Swift changes this convention  because Swift supports namespacing and it maps its core types like String to the NS equivalents

User · Answer

It is the NextStep    NS  heritage  NeXT was the computer company that Steve Jobs formed after he quit Apple in 1985  and NextStep was it s operating system  UNIX based  together with the Obj-C language and runtime  Together with it s libraries and tools  NextStep was later renamed OpenStep  which was also the name on an API that NeXT developed together with Sun   which in turn later became Cocoa   These different names are actually quite confusing  especially since some of the names differs only in which characters are upper or lower case     try this for an explanation   TheMerger OpenstepConfusion

User · Answer

When NeXT were defining the NextStep API  as opposed to the NEXTSTEP operating system   they used the prefix NX  as in NXConstantString  When they were writing the OpenStep specification with Sun  not to be confused with the OPENSTEP operating system  they used the NS prefix  as in NSObject

User · Answer

It is the NextStep    NS  heritage  NeXT was the computer company that Steve Jobs formed after he quit Apple in 1985  and NextStep was it s operating system  UNIX based  together with the Obj-C language and runtime  Together with it s libraries and tools  NextStep was later renamed OpenStep  which was also the name on an API that NeXT developed together with Sun   which in turn later became Cocoa   These different names are actually quite confusing  especially since some of the names differs only in which characters are upper or lower case     try this for an explanation   TheMerger OpenstepConfusion

User · Answer

Bill Bumgarner aka  bbum  who should know  posted on the CocoaBuilder mailing list in 2005      Sun entered the picture a bit after the NS prefix had come into play  The NS prefix came about in public APIs during the move from NeXTSTEP 3 0 to NeXTSTEP 4 0  also known as OpenStep    Prior to 4 0  a   handful of symbols used the NX prefix  but most classes provided by   the system libraries were not prefixed at all -- List  Hashtable    View  etc      It seems that everyone agrees that the prefix NX  for NeXT  was used until 1993 1994  and Apple s docs say      The official OpenStep API  published in September of 1994  was the first to split the API between Foundation and Application Kit and the first to use the    NS    prefix

User · Answer

From Cocoa  API  Wikipedia      emphasis added        Cocoa classes begin with the acronym  NS   standing either for the   NeXT-Sun creation of OpenStep  or for the original proprietary term   for the OpenStep framework  NeXTSTEP   NSString  NSArray  etc       Foundation Kit  or more commonly simply Foundation  first appeared in   OpenStep  On Mac OS X  it is based on Core Foundation  Foundation is a   generic object-oriented library providing string and value   manipulation  containers and iteration  distributed computing  run   loops  and other functions that are not directly tied to the graphical   user interface  The  NS  prefix  used for all classes and constants in   the framework  comes from Cocoa s OPENSTEP heritage  which was jointly   developed by NeXT and Sun

User · Answer

It is the NextStep    NS  heritage  NeXT was the computer company that Steve Jobs formed after he quit Apple in 1985  and NextStep was it s operating system  UNIX based  together with the Obj-C language and runtime  Together with it s libraries and tools  NextStep was later renamed OpenStep  which was also the name on an API that NeXT developed together with Sun   which in turn later became Cocoa   These different names are actually quite confusing  especially since some of the names differs only in which characters are upper or lower case     try this for an explanation   TheMerger OpenstepConfusion

User · Answer

When NeXT were defining the NextStep API  as opposed to the NEXTSTEP operating system   they used the prefix NX  as in NXConstantString  When they were writing the OpenStep specification with Sun  not to be confused with the OPENSTEP operating system  they used the NS prefix  as in NSObject

User · Answer

NeXTSTEP or NeXTSTEP Sun depending on who you are asking   Sun had a fairly large investment in OpenStep for a while  Before Sun entered the picture most things in the foundation  even though it wasn t known as the foundation back then  was prefixed NX  for NeXT  and sometime just before Sun entered the picture everything was renamed to NS  The S most likely did not stand for Sun then but after Sun stepped in the general consensus was that it stood for Sun to honor their involvement   I actually had a reference for this but I can t find it right now  I will update the post if when I find it again

User · Answer

It is the NextStep    NS  heritage  NeXT was the computer company that Steve Jobs formed after he quit Apple in 1985  and NextStep was it s operating system  UNIX based  together with the Obj-C language and runtime  Together with it s libraries and tools  NextStep was later renamed OpenStep  which was also the name on an API that NeXT developed together with Sun   which in turn later became Cocoa   These different names are actually quite confusing  especially since some of the names differs only in which characters are upper or lower case     try this for an explanation   TheMerger OpenstepConfusion

User · Answer

From Apple s developer docs      Historical Note  If you   re wondering why so many of the classes you encounter have an NS prefix  it   s because of the past history of Cocoa and Cocoa Touch  Cocoa began life as the collected frameworks used to build apps for the NeXTStep operating system  When Apple purchased NeXT back in 1996  much of NeXTStep was incorporated into OS X  including the existing class names  Cocoa Touch was introduced as the iOS equivalent of Cocoa  some classes are available in both Cocoa and Cocoa Touch  though there are also a large number of classes unique to each platform    Two-letter prefixes like NS and UI  for User Interface elements on iOS  are reserved for use by Apple    Source  Programming with Objective-C

User · Answer

When NeXT were defining the NextStep API  as opposed to the NEXTSTEP operating system   they used the prefix NX  as in NXConstantString  When they were writing the OpenStep specification with Sun  not to be confused with the OPENSTEP operating system  they used the NS prefix  as in NSObject

User · Answer

NeXTSTEP or NeXTSTEP Sun depending on who you are asking   Sun had a fairly large investment in OpenStep for a while  Before Sun entered the picture most things in the foundation  even though it wasn t known as the foundation back then  was prefixed NX  for NeXT  and sometime just before Sun entered the picture everything was renamed to NS  The S most likely did not stand for Sun then but after Sun stepped in the general consensus was that it stood for Sun to honor their involvement   I actually had a reference for this but I can t find it right now  I will update the post if when I find it again

User · Answer

The original code for the Cocoa frameworks came from the NeXTSTEP libraries Foundation and AppKit  those names are still used by Apple s Cocoa frameworks   and the NextStep engineers chose to prefix their symbols with NS   Because Objective-C is an extension of C and thus doesn t have namespaces like in C    symbols must be prefixed with a unique prefix so that they don t collide  This is particularly important for symbols defined in a framework   If you are writing an application  such that your code is only likely ever to use your symbols  you don t have to worry about this  But if you re writing a framework or library for others  use  you should also prefix your symbols with a  unique prefix  CocoaDev has a page where many developers in the Cocoa community have listed their  chosen  prefixes  You may also find this SO discussion helpful

User · Answer

When NeXT were defining the NextStep API  as opposed to the NEXTSTEP operating system   they used the prefix NX  as in NXConstantString  When they were writing the OpenStep specification with Sun  not to be confused with the OPENSTEP operating system  they used the NS prefix  as in NSObject

User · Answer

The original code for the Cocoa frameworks came from the NeXTSTEP libraries Foundation and AppKit  those names are still used by Apple s Cocoa frameworks   and the NextStep engineers chose to prefix their symbols with NS   Because Objective-C is an extension of C and thus doesn t have namespaces like in C    symbols must be prefixed with a unique prefix so that they don t collide  This is particularly important for symbols defined in a framework   If you are writing an application  such that your code is only likely ever to use your symbols  you don t have to worry about this  But if you re writing a framework or library for others  use  you should also prefix your symbols with a  unique prefix  CocoaDev has a page where many developers in the Cocoa community have listed their  chosen  prefixes  You may also find this SO discussion helpful

User · Answer

NeXTSTEP or NeXTSTEP Sun depending on who you are asking   Sun had a fairly large investment in OpenStep for a while  Before Sun entered the picture most things in the foundation  even though it wasn t known as the foundation back then  was prefixed NX  for NeXT  and sometime just before Sun entered the picture everything was renamed to NS  The S most likely did not stand for Sun then but after Sun stepped in the general consensus was that it stood for Sun to honor their involvement   I actually had a reference for this but I can t find it right now  I will update the post if when I find it again

User · Answer

NeXTSTEP or NeXTSTEP Sun depending on who you are asking   Sun had a fairly large investment in OpenStep for a while  Before Sun entered the picture most things in the foundation  even though it wasn t known as the foundation back then  was prefixed NX  for NeXT  and sometime just before Sun entered the picture everything was renamed to NS  The S most likely did not stand for Sun then but after Sun stepped in the general consensus was that it stood for Sun to honor their involvement   I actually had a reference for this but I can t find it right now  I will update the post if when I find it again

User · Answer

The original code for the Cocoa frameworks came from the NeXTSTEP libraries Foundation and AppKit  those names are still used by Apple s Cocoa frameworks   and the NextStep engineers chose to prefix their symbols with NS   Because Objective-C is an extension of C and thus doesn t have namespaces like in C    symbols must be prefixed with a unique prefix so that they don t collide  This is particularly important for symbols defined in a framework   If you are writing an application  such that your code is only likely ever to use your symbols  you don t have to worry about this  But if you re writing a framework or library for others  use  you should also prefix your symbols with a  unique prefix  CocoaDev has a page where many developers in the Cocoa community have listed their  chosen  prefixes  You may also find this SO discussion helpful

User · Answer

Basically NS comes from NextSTEP  the original operating system that became Mac OS X when Apple acquired Next   I want to explain something else and this is why exactly it s needed   In C   there are namespaces and almost anything goes in std  This is why you have std  string   Namespaces are used so it s harder for you to make a mistake and you can write your own class string without conflicting with the system one   Objective-C is superset of C  but it doesn t include namespaces and for the same reason above all system classes are prefixed with NS or some other strange prefix   This thing is the same of how all DirectX classes are prefixed with D3D and how all OpenGL classes are prefixed with gl   This means that you should not use NS to name your own classes and when you see NS  CA in Core Animation or CG in Core Graphics you understand that this is a call to a system framework   Swift changes this convention  because Swift supports namespacing and it maps its core types like String to the NS equivalents

[ios] What does the NS prefix mean?

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