iphone basic

Discover Whether an Object Is an Instance of a Particular Class or its Subclasses

To discover whether an object is an instance of a class or its subclasses, call the isKindOfClass: method on the object. An app sometimes makes this check when it wants to discover the messages (implemented or inherited) that an app responds to.

static int sum = 0;

for (id item in myArray) {

if ([item isKindOfClass:[NSNumber class]]) {

int i = (int)[item intValue];

sum += i;

}

}

The isKindOfClass: method takes an object of type Class as a parameter; to get this object, you call the class method on the class symbol. Then evaluate the Boolean value returned by this method and proceed accordingly.

NSObject declares other methods for discovering information about object inheritance. The isMemberOfClass: method, for example, tells you whether an object is an instance of a specific class, whereas isKindOfClass: tells you whether the object is a member of that class or any of its descendent classes.

Discover Whether an Object Responds to a Message

To discover whether an object responds to a message, call the respondsToSelector: method on the object. App code often verifies that an object responds to a message before it sends the message to the object.

if ([item respondsToSelector:@selector(setState:)]) {

[item setState:[self.arcView.font isBold] ? NSOnState : NSOffState];

}

The respondsToSelector: method takes a selector as its parameter. A selector is an Objective-C data type for runtime identifiers of methods; you specify a selector using the @selector compiler directive. In your code, evaluate the Boolean value returned by this method and proceed accordingly.

For identifying the messages an object responds to, calling respondsToSelector: is generally more useful than evaluating class type. For example, a more recent version of a class might implement a method that isn’t found in a prior version.

Discover Whether an Object Conforms to a Protocol

To discover whether an object conforms to a protocol, call the conformsToProtocol: method on the object.

- (void) setDelegate:(id __weak) obj {

NSParameterAssert([obj conformsToProtocol:

@protocol(SubviewTableViewControllerDataSourceProtocol)]);

delegate = obj;

}

The conformsToProtocol: method takes a runtime identifier of a protocol as a parameter; you specify this identifier using the @protocol compiler directive. Evaluate the Boolean value returned by this method and proceed accordingly. Note than an object can conform to a protocol without implementing its optional methods.

Compare Objects

You can compare two objects by using the isEqual: method. The object receiving the message is compared to the passed-in object; if they’re the same, the method returns YES. For example:

BOOL objectsAreEqual = [obj1 isEqual:obj2];

if (objectsAreEqual) {

// do something...

}

Note that object equality is different from object identity. For the latter, use the equality operator == to test whether two variables point to the same instance.

What is compared when you compare two objects of the same class? That depends on the class. The root class, NSObject, uses pointer equality as the basis of comparison. Subclasses at any level can override their superclass’s implementation to base the comparison on class-specific criteria, such as object state. For example, a hypothetical Person object might equal another Person object if the first-name, last-name, and birth-date attributes of both objects match.

The value and collection classes of the Foundation framework declare comparison methods of the form isEqualToType:, where Type is the class type minus the NS prefix—for example, isEqualToString: and isEqualToDictionary:. The comparison methods assume that the passed-in object is of the given type and raise an exception if it is not.

Copy Objects

You make a copy of an object by sending a copy message to it.

NSArray *myArray = [yourArray copy];

To be copied, the class of the receiving object must conform to the NSCopying protocol. If you want your objects to be copyable, you must adopt and implement the copy method of this protocol.

You sometimes copy an object obtained from elsewhere in a program when you want to ensure the object’s state does not change while you’re using it.

Copying behavior is specific to a class and depends upon the specific nature of the instance. Most classes implement deep copying, which makes a duplicate of all instance variables and properties; some classes (for example, the collection classes) implement shallow copying, which only duplicates the references to those instance variables and properties.

Classes that have mutable and immutable variants also declare a mutableCopy method to create a mutable copy of an object. For example, if you call mutableCopy on an NSString object, you get an instance of NSMutableString.