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Re: GSIMap
From: |
Richard Frith-Macdonald |
Subject: |
Re: GSIMap |
Date: |
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:32:37 +0100 |
On 25 Jun 2011, at 08:56, Helge Hess wrote:
> On Jun 10, 2011, at 6:14 AM, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
>> is pretty much unique to you I think
>
> I was also assuming that -retain can return a different object. Otherwise it
> should be void (aka AddRef()) ...
I'm all in favour of defensive programming like doing things like checking the
result of -retain but ...
See the Apple documentation at
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Protocols/NSObject_Protocol/Reference/NSObject.html
As you can see retain returns self, it does so as a convenience for use in
nested expressions and it is specifically a no-op in gc environments (which
means that the compiler/runtime is free to remove the call to -retain entirely
if you are using gc).
Short of saying something like 'this method really, *really*, REALLY never
returns a different object from the receiver', I don't see how the
documentation could be clearer, and I'm certain there is a lot of code written
by a lot of people which depends on the documented behavior, so overriding
-retain to do something else would be a fault/bug.
The clang compiler even complains that you are assigning a value to itsself if
you write 'x = [x retain]'
So if you write code which overrides -retain to return a different object, the
code is broken and you deserve what you get ... the documentation says its
wrong, the compiler says it's wrong, and in a gc environment the retain method
probably won't even be called.
Anyway, this is my last post on this topic ... I think it's been done to death.
- GSIMap, David Chisnall, 2011/06/01
- Re: GSIMap, Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2011/06/01
- Re: GSIMap, David Chisnall, 2011/06/01
- Re: GSIMap, Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2011/06/02
- Re: GSIMap, David Chisnall, 2011/06/02
- Re: GSIMap, Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2011/06/10
- Re: GSIMap, David Chisnall, 2011/06/10
- Re: GSIMap, Jens Ayton, 2011/06/16
- Re: GSIMap, Helge Hess, 2011/06/25
- Re: GSIMap, Nat!, 2011/06/25
- Re: GSIMap,
Richard Frith-Macdonald <=