On Jun 9, 2008, at 5:55 PM, Hamish Allan wrote:
Sure. But it gives you *more* information than if it just returns
"id". I agree with you in all other respects of your post, but I don't
agree that +[NSArray array] returns "id" because if it returned
"NSArray *" you'd have to have a separate declaration for
+[NSMutableArray array]. Indeed, that line of reasoning leads to
John's way of thinking: that if you return something more specific
than "id", it is in some sense indicative that the returned object is
more likely to be of a specific class, rather than a subclass thereof.
I think the problem is that if NSArray has +[NSArray array] returning
an NSArray, then NSMutableArray has to return an NSArray also, since
it can't have a different method signature for the same method. As a
result, if you called +[NSMutableArray array], the compiler would
think you were getting a regular, non-mutable NSArray, and you'd get a
warning if you tried to do this, although the code would still work:
NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray array];
The only way to get the compiler warnings to shut up would be to cast
it. If the methods return id, then the compiler just assumes you're
doing the right thing (which also means you can do stupid things like
assign +[NSMutableArray array] to an NSString or something which would
of course end up blowing up before too long, so it's not perfect
either, but it's certainly less annoying than having to typecast every
assignment of a newly-initialized NSMutableArray).
Charles
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