title: Need to declare a public instance variable in Objective-C
body: <p>I'm trying to declare some instance variables for a custom button class in Objective-C (for iOS):</p>
  
  <pre><code>@interface PatientIDButton : UIButton {
      NSUInteger patientID;
      NSString * patientName;
  }
  @end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, these are now private and I need them accessible to other classes. I guess I could make accessor functions for them, but how would I make the variables themselves public?</p>