Chapter 15. Suite Reference

Property Suite

The files ofxCore.h and ofxProperty.h contain the basic definitions for the property suite.

The property suite is the most basic and important suite in OFX, it is used to get and set the values of various objects defined by other suites.

A property is a named value of a specific data type, such values can be multi-dimensional, but is typically of one dimension. The name is a 'C' string literal, typically #defined in one of the various OFX header files. For example, the property labeled by the string literal "OfxPropName" is a 'C' string which holds the name of some object.

Properties are not accessed in isolation, but are grouped and accessed through a property set handle. The number and types of properties on a specific property set handle are currently strictly defined by the API that the properties are being used for. There is no scope to add new properties.

There is a naming convention for property labels and the macros #defined to them. The scheme is,

  • generic properties names start with "OfxProp" + name of the property, e.g. "OfxPropTime".
  • properties pertaining to a specific object with "Ofx" + object name + "Prop" + name of the property, e.g. "OfxParamPropAnimates".
  • the C preprocessor #define used to define the string literal is the same as the string literal, but with "k" prepended to the name. For example, #define kOfxPropLabel "OfxPropLabel"