Can anyone tell me what the angle brackets <...> in an Objective-C class interface do? Like this one (from http://snipt.net/robhawkes/cocoa-class-interface):
@interface MapMeViewController : UIViewController <CLLocationManagerDelegate,
MKReverseGeocoderDelegate, MKMapViewDelegate, UIAlertViewDelegate> { ... }
From my view they look like some sort of type declaration (considering my previous experience in PHP and JavaScript), like we're making sure MapMeViewController is a CLLocationManagerDelegate, MKReverseGeocoderDelegate, MKMapViewDelegate, or UIAlertViewDelegate
Documentation about the @interface syntax don't seem to mention this.
The angle brackets in a class interface definition indicates the protocols that your class is conforming to.
A protocol is almost like an interface in Java or C#, with the addition that methods in an Objective-C protocol can be optional.
Additionaly in Objective-C you can declare a variable, argument or instance variable to conform to several protocols as well. Example
NSObject<NSCoding, UITableViewDelegate> *myVariable;
In this case the class must be NSObject or a subclass (only NSProxy and its subclasses would fail), and it must also conform to both NSCoding and UITableViewDelegate protocols.
In Java or C# this would only be possible by actually declaring said class.