IBAction / IBOutlet / IBOutletCollection
时间 2014-05-05 15:00:00 NSHipster原文 http://nshipster.com/ibaction-iboutlet-iboutletcollection/
In programming, what often begins as a necessary instruction eventually becomes a vestigial cue for humans. In the case of Objective-C, #pragma
directives , method
type encodings , and all but the most essentialstorage classeshave been rendered essentially meaningless, as the compiler becomes increasingly sophisticated. Discarded and disregarded during the compilation phase, they nonetheless remain useful to the
development process as a whole, insofar as what they can tell other developers about the code itself.
For developers just starting with Cocoa & Cocoa Touch, the IBAction
, IBOutlet
,
and IBOutletCollection
macros
are particularly bewildering examples of this phenomenon. As we'll learn in this week's article, though having outgrown their technical necessity, they remain a vibrant tradition in the culture of Objective-C development.
Unlike othertwo-letter prefixes,
IB
doesnot refer to a system framework, but rather Interface Builder.
Interface Builder can trace its roots to the halcyon days of Objective-C, when it and Project Builder comprised the NeXTSTEP developer tools (circa
1988). Before it was subsumed into Xcode 4, Interface Builder remained remarkably unchanged from its 1.0 release. An iOS developer today would feel right at home on a NeXTSTEP workstation, control-dragging views into outlets.
Back when they were separate applications, it was a challenge to keep the object graph represented in a .nib
document
in Interface Builder synchronized with its corresponding .h
& .m
files
in Project Builder (what would eventually become Xcode). IBOutlet
and IBAction
were
used as keywords, to denote what parts of the code should be visible to Interface Builder.
IBAction
and IBOutlet
are,
themselves, computationally meaningless, as their macro definitions (in UINibDeclarations.h
)
demonstrate:
#define IBAction void
#define IBOutlet
Well actually, there's more than meets the eye. Scrying the Clang source code , we see that they're actually defined by attribute -backed
attributes:
#define IBOutlet __attribute__((iboutlet))
#define IBAction __attribute__((ibaction))
IBAction
As early as 2004 (and perhaps earlier), IBAction
was
no longer necessary for a method to be noticed by Interface Builder. Any method with a signature -
would be visible in the outlets pane.
(void){name}:(id)sender
Nevertheless, many developers find it useful to still use the IBAction
return
type in method declarations to denote that a particular method is connected to an outlet. Even for projects not using Storyboards / XIBs may choose to employ IBAction
to
call out target / action methods.
Naming IBAction Methods
Thanks to strong, and often compiler-enforced conventions, naming is especially important in Objective-C, so the question of how to name IBAction methods is one not taken lightly. Though there is some disagreement, the preferred convention is as follows:
- Return type of
IBAction
. - Method name of an active verb, describing the specific action performed.Method names like
didTapButton:
ordidPerformAction:
sound
more like things adelegate
might
be sent. - Required
sender
parameter
of typeid
. All
target / action methods will pass thesender
of
the action (usually the responder) to methods that take a parameter. If omitted in the method signature, things will still work. - Optional event parameter of type
UIEvent
, named
*withEvent:
(iOS
only) . In UIKit, a secondUIEvent
parameter, corresponding to the touch, motion, or remote control event triggering the responder, will be passed to target / action methods accepting this second parameter. The convention is to use
*withEvent:
in
the method signature, to match theUIResponder
APIs.
For example:
// YES
- (IBAction)refresh:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)toggleVisibility:(id)sender
withEvent:(UIEvent *)event;
// NO
- (IBAction)peformSomeAction;
- (IBAction)didTapButton:(id)sender;
IBOutlet
Unlike IBAction
, IBOutlet
is
still required for hooking up properties in code with objects in a Storyboard or XIB.
An IBOutlet
connection is usually
established between a view or control and its managing view controller (this is often done in addition to any IBAction
s
that a view controller might be targeted to perform by a responder). However, an IBOutlet
can
also be used to expose a top-level property, like another controller or a property that could then be accessed by a referencing view controller.
When to use @property
or ivar
As with anything in modern Objective-C, properties are preferred to direct ivar access . The same is true of IBOutlet
s:
// YES
@interface GallantViewController : UIViewController
@property (nonatomic, weak) IBOutlet UISwitch *switch;
@end
// NO
@interface GoofusViewController : UIViewController {
IBOutlet UISwitch *_switch
}
@end
With the advent of ARC , it became possible to reference an IBOutlet
from
an instance variable. However, since properties are the conventional way to expose and access members of a class, both externally and internally, they are preferred in this case as well, if only for consistency.
When to use weak
or strong
One unfortunate consequence (if you want to call it that) of ARC is the ambiguity of when a IBOutlet
@property
should
be declared as weak
or strong
.
The ambiguity arises from the fact that most outlets have no discernible behavioral differences between weak
or strong
—it
just works.
...except when it doesn't... and things crash, or the compiler warns about weak
or strong
use.
So what should one do? Always declare IBOutlet
properties
as weak
, except when they
need to be strong
,
as explained by Apple in their Resource Programming Guide section on Nib Files :
Outlets should be changed to strong
when
the outlet should be considered to own the referenced object:
- This is often the case with File’s Owner—top level objects in a nib file are frequently considered to be owned by the
File’s
.
Owner - You may in some situations need an object from a nib file to exist outside of its original container. For example, you might have an outlet for a view that can be temporarily removed from its initial view
hierarchy and must therefore be maintained independently.
The reason why most IBOutlet
views
can get away with weak
ownership
is that they are already owned within their respective view hierarchy, by their superview. This chain of ownership eventually works its way up to the view
owned
by the view controller itself. Spurious use of strong
ownership
on a view outlet has the potential to create a retain cycle.
IBOutletCollection
IBOutlet
's obscure step-cousin-in-law-once-removed
is IBOutletCollection
. Introduced
in iOS 4, this pseudo-keyword allows collections of IBOutlet
s
to be defined in Interface Builder, by dragging connections to its collection members.
IBOutletCollection
is #define
'd
in UINibDeclarations.h
as:
#define IBOutletCollection(ClassName)
...which is defined in a much more satisfying way, again, in the Clang source code :
#define IBOutletCollection(ClassName) __attribute__((iboutletcollection(ClassName)))
Unlike IBAction
or IBOutlet
, IBOutletCollection
takes
a class name as an argument, which is, incidentally, as close to Apple-sanctioned generics as one gets in Objective-C.
As a top-level object, an IBOutletCollection
@property
should
be declared strong
, with an NSArray
type:
*
@property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutletCollection(UIButton) NSArray *buttons;
There are two rather curious things to note about an IBOutletCollection
array:
- Its order is not necessarily guaranteed . The order of an outlet collection appears to be roughly the order in which their connections are established in Interface Builder. However, there
are numerous reports of that order changing across versions of Xcode, or as a natural consequence of version control. Nonetheless, having code rely on a fixed order is strongly discouraged. - No matter what type is declared for the property, an
IBOutletCollection
is
always anNSArray
.
In fact, any type can be declared:NSSet
,
*id <NSFastEnumeration>
—heck,
evenUIColor *
! No matter what
you put, anIBOutletCollection
will
always be stored as anNSArray
,
so you might as well have that type match up in your declaration to avoid compiler warnings.
With the advent of Objective-Cobject literals, IBOutletCollection
has
fallen slightly out of favor—at least for the common use case of convenience accessors, as in:
for (UILabel *label in labels) {
label.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:14];
}
Since declaring a collection of outlets is now as easy as comma-delimiting them within @[]
,
it may make just as much sense to do that as create a distinct collection.
Where IBOutletCollection
really
shines is how it allows for multiple to define a unique collection of outlets under a shared identifier. Another advantage over a code-defined NSArray
literal
is that a collection can contain outlets that themselves are not connected to File's
.
Owner
The next time you're managing a significant or variable number of outlets in an iOS view, take a look at IBOutletCollection
.
IBAction
, IBOutlet
,and
IBOutletCollection
playimportant roles in development, on both the compiler level and human level . As Objective-C continues to rapidly evolve as a platform, it is likely that they may someday be as completely vestigial as the wings of flightless birds or eyes of cavefish. For now,
though, it's important to understand what they are, and how to use them, if you plan on creating apps in any capacity.