Описание тега self

In many object-oriented programming languages, self (also called this or Me) is a keyword that is used in instance methods to refer to the object on which they are working. Languages like smalltalk and others such as object-pascal, python and ruby use self. objective-c uses self or super; c++ and languages which derive in style from it (such as java, c#, and php) generally use this. Visual Basic uses Me.

Invoking a method on the self searches for the method implementation of the method in the usual manner, starting in the dispatch table of the receiving object’s class.

Example:

[self startThread];
self.hostReach = YES;
BOOL value = self.hostReach;

Here, self is a variable name that can be used in any number of ways, even assigned a new value.

Inside an instance method, self refers to the instance; inside a class method, self refers to the class object.