Foundation Framework Reference

The Foundation framework defines a base layer of Objective-C classes. In addition to providing a set of useful primitive object classes, it introduces several paradigms that define functionality not covered by the Objective-C language. The Foundation framework is designed with these goals in mind:

• Provide a small set of basic utility classes.

• Make software development easier by introducing consistent conventions for things such as deallocation.

• Support Unicode strings, object persistence, and object distribution.

• Provide a level of OS independence, to enhance portability.

The Foundation framework includes the root object class, classes representing basic data types such as strings and byte arrays, collection classes for storing other objects, classes representing system information such as dates, and classes representing communication ports. See Figure I-1 for a list of those classes that make up the Foundation framework.