Objective-C:Categories

今天由于要看ObjC的代码，学点基本知识，水平很有限！

published by john at 5:21 am under iphone, Objective-C

As an alternative to subclassing, Objective-C categories provide a means to add method to a class.

Objective-C categories提供一个可选的把方法加入到类的方式对于子集。

What's intriguing, is that any methods that you add through a category become part of the class definition, so to speak.

引起兴趣的是，通过category你加入的方法会成为类定义中的一部分，就这样说吧。

In other words, if you add a method to the NSString class, any instance, or subclass, of NSString will have access to that method.

换句话说，如果你加个方法到类NSString,NSString的任何实例或者子类肯定有访问这个方法的权利。

Defining a category is identical to defining the interface for a class, with one small exception: you add a category name inside a set of parenthesis after the interface declaration.

定义category是与为类定义interface相同的，一点变化的是：在interface定义后接上一对插入了category名字的圆括号。

the format is shown below:

@interface ClassToAddMethodsTo (category)
...methods 
@end

For example, below I've defined a category that adds a method to the NSString class.

The method reverseString adds the capability to all NSString objects to reverse the characters in the string.

方法reverseString对所有NSString的对象增加字符产反向字符的能力。

@interface NSString (reverse)
-(NSString)reverseString;
@end

As with the @interface declaration, the @implementation section changes only in that the category names is added to the definition.

与@interface段的申明一样，@implementation段的改变仅仅是category的名字加入到定义里去了。

Below is the implementation of the interface defined above. Notice how in both cases I added (reverse), which is the category name I assigned.

@implenmentation NSString (reverse)
-(NSString *) reverseString
{
    NSMutableString *reversedStr;
    int len = [self length];
 
    // auto released string
    reversedStr = [NSMutableString stringWithCapacity:len];

    // probably woefully ineffioient...
    while (len > 0)
    {
          [reversedStr appendString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%c", [self characterAtIndex:--len]]];
     }
     return reversedStr;
}
@end

What follows is a short example to showing how to one might use the above category.

接下来的例子就是展示怎么用上面的category的，大家要注意了。

 

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <NSString+Reverse.h>
int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
     NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
     NSString *str = [NSString stringWithString:@"Fubar"];
     
     NLog(@"string: %@", str");
     rev = [str reverseString];
     NSLog(@"reversed: %@", rev);
     [pool drain];
     return 0;
}

The output of the above example is shown here:

结果大家去试下就知道，我就不打了。

Overriding Methods

Categories can also be used to override methods the class inherits, again, providing an alternaive to subclassing.

categories常常用来为子类在类的继承上重写方法提供又一种可选的方法。

You can always access the overridden method using super.

你总用关键字super去访问重写的方法。

I would assume from an internal (compiler/code generation) persperctive, this could lead to less code/overhead as compared to creating a subclass solely to override a method (caveat: I have to no proof that is true).

Dividing Source Code into Separate File

Although I haven't given this a go, categories provide an interesting opportunity to disperse the implementation of  a class across one or more files.

The Objective-C Programming Guid lists several benefits of the including:

• Opportunity to group together methods that perform similar tasks
• Confiuring classes differently for various applications, yet maintaining one set of code.
• 为各种应用程序配置不同的类，而且还能使这一代码集维持联系。

Naming Conventions 名称转换，要注意哦！

The recommended naming convention fo ra category is "ClassToAddMethodsTo+CatgoryName" for instance, I used the following filenames for the interface and implementation of the above category code:

• NSString+Reverse.h
• NSString+Reverse.m

Caveats

好吧！以下都是注意事项了。

You cannot add instance variables to a class throught a category. Also, category names must be unique across an application.

其实也没有什么，就是你不能在category加入变量，还有就是应用范围内你的名字保持唯一。OK

 

Source Code

I've attached the Xcode project for the above example if you'd like to give it a try.

In the next post I'll shwo another example of using categories - the example will show one approach for hiding methods within in a class,

as Objective-C does not offer support for private methods. 你可以用category来隐藏方法，做到private,ObjC是没有提供private的哦！