Getting name of the class from an instance

Question

I have the following problem: I get an instance of a class passed and want to know the name of the class of this instance. How to get this?

Solution 1

NSStringFromClass([instance class]) should do the trick.

Solution 2

if all you want to do is test an object to see if it's a type of a certain Class

BOOL test = [self isKindOfClass:[SomeClass class]];

Solution 3

From within the class itself

-(NSString *) className
{
    return NSStringFromClass([self class]);
}

Solution 4

OBJC:

NSStringFromClass([instance class])

SWIFT

From instance:

String(describing: YourType.self)

From type:

String(describing: self)

Solution 5

Just add a category:

NSObject+Extensions.h
- (NSString *)className;

NSObject+Extensions.m
- (NSString *)className {
    return NSStringFromClass(self.class);
}

Then use the following code:

NSString *className = [[SomeObject new] className];

or even:

NSString *className = SomeObject.new.className;

To use it anywhere add the category to YourProject.pch file.

View more solutions

Comments

[Jasper Blues]

Perhaps reword your question or accept the answer that matches the question?

[Robin]

@JasperBlues: Done, didn't even realize how popular this got!

[Gleno]

Upvoted for answering the question so that googlers can get an answer, instead of anticipating the need.

[danh]

Absolutely don't want to arouse your anger, but this was the second iOS-related answer in your profile. It seems to me to add only that we can refer to an instance as "self" from within its implementation. Would you defend this as adding substantially to the three-year-old accepted answer?

[Katedral Pillon]

@danh I see you are hunting me down. Good for you!

[danh]

Sorry, I just clicked this one, and debated about whether to say anything. Just wanted to do some gentle ribbing, but I know that tempers get hot pretty quickly in these semi-faceless settings. Thanks for being good natured about it. (In fact, +1 for practicing encapsulation).

[Nikolai Ruhe]

This adds nothing to the answer except trouble.

[JP Illanes]

Remember to #import <objc/objc-runtime.h> to able to call class on an instance.

[jbg]

or just self.dynamicType

[Bhumit Muchhadia]

Should make this a class method

[Alper]

If called on a Swift class, this returns a namespaced classname.