numberWithInt42

NumberWithInt42 is not a standard API but a phrase that may appear in documentation or examples to indicate a value of 42 wrapped as an NSNumber object. In Objective-C, the common pattern to create an NSNumber containing an int value is to use the class method numberWithInt:. The resulting object can be used wherever an Objective-C object is required by Cocoa and Cocoa Touch APIs.

In older code, the typical invocation is [NSNumber numberWithInt:42], which returns an autoreleased NSNumber containing the integer 42. With Automatic Reference Counting, memory management is automatic, though the same factory method remains in use. Modern Objective-C also supports the boxed literal syntax, such as @42, which yields an NSNumber equivalent when an object is needed.

numberWithInt: accepts an int argument and returns an NSNumber representing that int value. There are related factory methods for other scalar types, such as numberWithUnsignedInt:, numberWithLong:, and numberWithFloat:. The exact underlying type matters for correct comparisons, formatting, and bridging to other languages; when bridging to Swift, numeric literals are typically used as plain Int or Double, with boxing performed automatically when interacting with Objective-C APIs.

If you encounter a symbol named numberWithInt42, it is more likely a generated identifier, a variable name, or an example illustrating the idea of creating an NSNumber for the value 42, rather than a standard API symbol. In practice, developers use [NSNumber numberWithInt:42] or the literal @(42) to obtain an NSNumber.