Overview

NSData and its mutable subclass NSMutableData provide data objects, object-oriented wrappers for byte buffers. Data objects let simple allocated buffers (that is, data with no embedded pointers) take on the behavior of Foundation objects.

NSData creates static data objects, and NSMutableData creates dynamic data objects. NSData and NSMutableData are typically used for data storage and are also useful in Distributed Objects applications, where data contained in data objects can be copied or moved between applications.

The size of the data is subject to a theoretical limit of about 8 ExaBytes (in practice, the limit should not be a factor).

NSData is “toll-free bridged” with its Core Foundation counterpart, CFDataRef. See “Toll-Free Bridging” for more information on toll-free bridging.