Cocoa Programming for OS X: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

by Aaron Hillegass, Adam Preble and Nate Chandler

Copyright © 2015 Big Nerd Ranch, LLC.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and
permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system,
or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For
information regarding permissions, contact

Big Nerd Ranch, LLC.

200 Arizona Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
(770) 817-6373
http://www.bignerdranch.com/
[email protected]

The 10-gallon hat with propeller logo is a trademark of Big Nerd Ranch, LLC.
Exclusive worldwide distribution of the English edition of this book by

Pearson Technology Group

800 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46240 USA
http://www.informit.com

The authors and publisher have taken care in writing and printing this book but make no expressed or implied
warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental
or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained
herein.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the
designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in all capitals.
 
ISBN-10  0134077113
ISBN-13  978-0134077116
Fifth edition, first printing, April 2015
Release D.5.1.1
 For Aaron’s sons, Walden and Otto

For Adam’s daughters, Aimee and Leah

For Nate’s nieces and nephews

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Acknowledgments
Creating this book required the efforts of many people. We want to thank them for their help. Their
contributions have made this a better book than we could have ever written alone.
Thanks to the students who took the Cocoa programming course at the Big Nerd Ranch. They helped
us work the kinks out of the exercises and explanations that appear here. Their curiosity inspired us to
make the book more comprehensive, and their patience made it possible.
Thank you to all the readers of the first four editions who made such great suggestions on our forums
( http://forums.bignerdranch.com/ ).
Thank you to our technical reviewers, Juan Pablo Claude, Chris Morris, Nick Teissler, Pouria Almassi,
and John Gallagher, who made great additions and caught many of our most egregious errors.
Finally, a very big thank you to our support team in writing this book: Liz Holaday, for copy-editing;
Chris Loper, whose excellent tool chain made writing this book that much easier; and most of all Susan
Loper, whose collaboration helped us write the kind of book we believe this technology deserves.

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Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................. xvii
About This Book ................................................................................................... xvii
Prerequisites ................................................................................................. xviii
Typographical conventions .............................................................................. xviii
What’s new in the fifth edition? ...................................................................... xviii
The Story of Cocoa ............................................................................................... xviii
NeXTSTEP and OpenStep ............................................................................... xix
From NeXTSTEP to OS X to iOS ..................................................................... xix
OSX, Unix, and Cocoa ..................................................................................... xx
Introducing the Swift Language ................................................................................. xx
The Cocoa Frameworks ........................................................................................... xxi
Tools for Cocoa Programming .................................................................................. xxi
Some Advice on Learning ....................................................................................... xxii
1. Let’s Get Started ........................................................................................................... 1
Creating an Xcode Project .......................................................................................... 1
Getting around in Xcode .................................................................................... 3
Application Design .................................................................................................... 4
Model-View-Controller ....................................................................................... 4
Creating the MainWindowController class ............................................................. 6
Creating the User Interface in Interface Builder .............................................................. 8
Adding view objects .......................................................................................... 9
Configuring view objects .................................................................................. 11
XIB files and NIB files .................................................................................... 14
Showing the Window ............................................................................................... 14
Making Connections ................................................................................................ 17
Creating an outlet ............................................................................................ 17
Connecting an outlet ........................................................................................ 18
Defining an action method ................................................................................ 19
Connecting actions ........................................................................................... 20
Creating the Model Layer ......................................................................................... 22
Connecting the Model Layer to the Controller .............................................................. 24
Improving Controller Design ..................................................................................... 24
2. Swift Types ................................................................................................................. 27
Introducing Swift ..................................................................................................... 27
Types in Swift ........................................................................................................ 27
Using Standard Types ............................................................................................... 28
Inferring types ................................................................................................ 30
Specifying types .............................................................................................. 30
Literals and subscripting ................................................................................... 32
Initializers ...................................................................................................... 33
Properties ....................................................................................................... 34
Instance methods ............................................................................................. 34
Optionals ................................................................................................................ 34
Subscripting dictionaries ................................................................................... 36
Loops and String Interpolation ................................................................................... 36

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Enumerations and the Switch Statement ...................................................................... 38

Enumerations and raw values ............................................................................. 39
Exploring Apple’s Swift Documentation ...................................................................... 39
3. Structures and Classes .................................................................................................. 41
Structures ............................................................................................................... 41
Instance methods ............................................................................................. 43
Operator Overloading ............................................................................................... 44
Classes ................................................................................................................... 45
Designated and convenience initializers ............................................................... 46
Add an instance method ................................................................................... 46
Inheritance ...................................................................................................... 49
Computed Properties ................................................................................................ 51
Reference and Value Types ....................................................................................... 53
Implications of reference and value types ............................................................ 53
Choosing between reference and value types ........................................................ 54
Making Types Printable ............................................................................................ 54
Swift and Objective-C .............................................................................................. 55
Working with Foundation Types ................................................................................. 56
Basic bridging ................................................................................................. 56
Bridging with collections .................................................................................. 57
Runtime Errors ........................................................................................................ 58
More Exploring of Apple’s Swift Documentation .......................................................... 59
Challenge: Safe Landing ........................................................................................... 59
Challenge: Vector Angle ........................................................................................... 59
4. Memory Management ................................................................................................... 61
Automatic Reference Counting .................................................................................. 61
Objects have reference counts ............................................................................ 61
Deallocating objects in a hierarchy ..................................................................... 62
Strong and Weak References ..................................................................................... 65
Strong reference cycles ..................................................................................... 65
Unowned references ......................................................................................... 67
What is ARC? ........................................................................................................ 68
5. Controls ..................................................................................................................... 69
Setting up RGBWell ................................................................................................ 70
Creating the MainWindowController class ........................................................... 70
Creating an empty XIB file ............................................................................... 71
Creating an instance of MainWindowController .................................................... 74
Connecting a window controller and its window ................................................... 75
About Controls ........................................................................................................ 78
Working with Controls ............................................................................................. 79
A word about NSCell ....................................................................................... 80
Connecting the slider’s target and action .............................................................. 80
A continuous control ........................................................................................ 82
Setting the slider’s range values ......................................................................... 83
Adding two more sliders ................................................................................... 85
NSColorWell and NSColor ................................................................................ 86
Disabling a control .......................................................................................... 88
Using the Documentation .......................................................................................... 88

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Changing the color of the color well ................................................................... 91

Controls and Outlets ................................................................................................ 93
Implicitly unwrapped optionals .......................................................................... 95
For the More Curious: More on NSColor .................................................................... 95
For the More Curious: Setting the Target Programmatically ............................................. 96
Challenge: Busy Board ............................................................................................. 96
Debugging Hints ..................................................................................................... 97
6. Delegation .................................................................................................................. 99
Setting up SpeakLine ............................................................................................... 99
Creating and using an Xcode snippet ................................................................. 101
Creating the user interface ............................................................................... 103
Synthesizing Speech ............................................................................................... 106
Updating Buttons ................................................................................................... 107
Delegation ............................................................................................................ 109
Being a delegate ............................................................................................ 110
Implementing another delegate ......................................................................... 112
Common errors in implementing a delegate ........................................................ 114
Cocoa classes that have delegates ..................................................................... 115
Delegate protocols and notifications .................................................................. 115
NSApplication and NSApplicationDelegate ................................................................ 115
The main event loop ....................................................................................... 116
For the More Curious: How Optional Delegate Methods Work ....................................... 116
Challenge: Enforcing a Window’s Aspect Ratio ........................................................... 117
7. Working with Table Views ........................................................................................... 119
About Table Views ................................................................................................. 119
Delegates and data sources .............................................................................. 120
The table view-data source conversation ............................................................ 120
SpeakLine’s table view and helper objects .......................................................... 121
Getting Voice Data ................................................................................................. 121
Retrieving friendly names ................................................................................ 122
Adding a Table View .............................................................................................. 123
Table view and related objects ......................................................................... 124
Tables, Cells, and Views ......................................................................................... 126
Table cell views ............................................................................................. 127
The NSTableViewDataSource Protocol ...................................................................... 128
Conforming to the protocol ............................................................................. 128
Connecting the dataSource outlet ...................................................................... 128
Implementing data source methods ................................................................... 129
Binding the text field to the table cell view ........................................................ 130
The NSTableViewDelegate Protocol .......................................................................... 131
Making a connection with the assistant editor ..................................................... 132
Implementing a delegate method ...................................................................... 133
Pre-selecting the default voice .......................................................................... 133
Challenge: Make a Data Source ............................................................................... 134
8. KVC, KVO, and Bindings ........................................................................................... 135
Bindings ............................................................................................................... 136
Setting up Thermostat ..................................................................................... 136
Using bindings .............................................................................................. 137

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Cocoa Programming for OS X

Key-value observing ....................................................................................... 139

Making keys observable .................................................................................. 140
Binding other attributes ................................................................................... 142
KVC and Property Accessors ................................................................................... 145
KVC and nil ......................................................................................................... 146
Debugging Bindings ............................................................................................... 146
Using the Debugger ............................................................................................... 147
Using breakpoints .......................................................................................... 148
Stepping through code .................................................................................... 149
The LLDB console ......................................................................................... 151
Using the debugger to see bindings in action ...................................................... 152
For the More Curious: Key Paths ............................................................................. 153
For the More Curious: More on Key-Value Observing .................................................. 154
For the More Curious: Dependent Keys ..................................................................... 155
Challenge: Convert RGBWell to Use Bindings ............................................................ 156
9. NSArrayController ..................................................................................................... 157
RaiseMan’s Model Layer ........................................................................................ 158
RaiseMan’s View Layer .......................................................................................... 160
Introducing NSArrayController ................................................................................ 160
Adding an Array Controller to the XIB ..................................................................... 162
Binding the Array Controller to the Model ................................................................. 163
Binding the Table View’s Content to the Array Controller ............................................. 164
Connecting the Add Employee Button ....................................................................... 164
Binding the Text Fields to the Table Cell Views .......................................................... 165
Formatting the Raise Text Field ................................................................................ 167
Connecting the Remove Button ................................................................................ 169
Binding the Table View’s Selection to the Array Controller ........................................... 169
Configuring RaiseMan’s Remove Button .................................................................... 171
Sorting in RaiseMan ............................................................................................... 171
How Sorting Works in RaiseMan .............................................................................. 174
For the More Curious: The caseInsensitiveCompare(_:) Method ..................................... 175
For the More Curious: Sorting Without NSArrayController ........................................... 176
For the More Curious: Filtering ................................................................................ 177
For the More Curious: Using Interface Builder’s View Hierarchy Popover ........................ 178
Challenge: Sorting Names by Length ........................................................................ 180
10. Formatters and Validation .......................................................................................... 181
Formatters ............................................................................................................ 181
Formatters, programmatically ........................................................................... 181
Formatters and a control’s objectValue ............................................................... 182
Formatters and localization .............................................................................. 183
Validation with Key-Value Coding ............................................................................ 183
Adding Key-Value validation to RaiseMan ......................................................... 183
For the More Curious: NSValueTransformer ............................................................... 187
11. NSUndoManager ...................................................................................................... 189
Message Passing and NSInvocation ........................................................................... 189
How the NSUndoManager Works ............................................................................. 190
Using NSUndoManager .......................................................................................... 191
Key-Value Coding and To-Many Relationships ............................................................ 192

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 Cocoa Programming for OS X

Adding Undo to RaiseMan ...................................................................................... 194

Key-Value Observing .............................................................................................. 195
Using the Context Pointer Defensively ...................................................................... 196
Undo for Edits ...................................................................................................... 197
Begin Editing on Insert ........................................................................................... 199
For the More Curious: Windows and the Undo Manager ............................................... 201
12. Archiving ................................................................................................................ 203
NSCoder and NSCoding ......................................................................................... 204
Encoding ...................................................................................................... 204
Decoding ...................................................................................................... 205
The Document Architecture ..................................................................................... 206
Info.plist and NSDocumentController ................................................................ 207
NSDocument ................................................................................................. 207
NSWindowController ...................................................................................... 210
Saving and NSKeyedArchiver .................................................................................. 211
Loading and NSKeyedUnarchiver ............................................................................. 211
Setting the Extension and Icon for the File Type ......................................................... 212
Application Data and URLs ..................................................................................... 215
For the More Curious: Preventing Infinite Loops ......................................................... 216
For the More Curious: Creating a Protocol ................................................................. 217
For the More Curious: Automatic Document Saving .................................................... 218
For the More Curious: Document-Based Applications Without Undo ............................... 218
For the More Curious: Universal Type Identifiers ........................................................ 218
13. Basic Core Data ....................................................................................................... 221
Defining the Object Model ...................................................................................... 221
Configure the Array Controller ................................................................................. 223
Add the Views ...................................................................................................... 225
Connections and Bindings ....................................................................................... 229
How Core Data Works ............................................................................................ 234
Fetching Objects from the NSManagedObjectContext .................................................. 235
Persistent Store Types ............................................................................................. 236
Choosing a Cocoa Persistence Technology ................................................................. 237
Customizing Objects Created by NSArrayController .................................................... 237
Challenge: Begin Editing on Add ............................................................................. 238
Challenge: Implement RaiseMan Using Core Data ....................................................... 238
14. User Defaults ........................................................................................................... 239
NSUserDefaults ..................................................................................................... 239
Adding User Defaults to SpeakLine .......................................................................... 240
Create Names for the Defaults ................................................................................. 241
Register Factory Defaults for the Preferences .............................................................. 241
Reading the Preferences .......................................................................................... 242
Reflecting the Preferences in the UI .......................................................................... 243
Writing the Preferences to User Defaults ................................................................... 243
Storing the User Defaults ........................................................................................ 244
What Can Be Stored in NSUserDefaults? ................................................................... 245
Precedence of Types of Defaults ............................................................................... 246
What is the User’s Defaults Database? ....................................................................... 246
For the More Curious: Reading/Writing Defaults from the Command Line ....................... 247

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For the More Curious: NSUserDefaultsController ........................................................ 248

Challenge: Reset Preferences ................................................................................... 248
15. Alerts and Closures ................................................................................................... 249
NSAlert ................................................................................................................ 249
Modals and Sheets ................................................................................................. 250
Completion Handlers and Closures ........................................................................... 251
Closures and capturing .................................................................................... 252
Make the User Confirm the Deletion ......................................................................... 253
For the More Curious: Functional Methods and Minimizing Closure Syntax ..................... 256
Challenge: Don’t Fire Them Quite Yet ...................................................................... 256
Challenge: Different Messages for Different Situations ................................................. 257
16. Using Notifications ................................................................................................... 259
What Notifications Are ........................................................................................... 259
What Notifications Are Not ..................................................................................... 259
NSNotification ....................................................................................................... 259
NSNotificationCenter .............................................................................................. 259
Starting the Chatter Application ............................................................................... 261
Using Notifications in Chatter .................................................................................. 265
For the More Curious: Delegates and Notifications ...................................................... 268
Challenge: Beep-beep! ............................................................................................ 268
Challenge: Add Usernames ...................................................................................... 268
Challenge: Colored Text .......................................................................................... 268
Challenge: Disabling the Send Button ....................................................................... 268
17. NSView and Drawing ................................................................................................ 271
Setting Up the Dice Application ............................................................................... 271
Creating a view subclass ................................................................................. 273
Views, Rectangles, and Coordinate Systems ............................................................... 274
frame ........................................................................................................... 274
bounds ......................................................................................................... 276
Custom Drawing .................................................................................................... 276
drawRect(_:) ................................................................................................. 277
When is my view drawn? ................................................................................ 278
Graphics contexts and states ............................................................................ 278
Drawing a die face ......................................................................................... 279
Saving and Restoring the Graphics State .................................................................... 284
Cleaning up with Auto Layout ................................................................................. 285
Drawing Images .................................................................................................... 286
Inspectable properties and designable views ........................................................ 289
Drawing images with finer control .................................................................... 290
Scroll Views .......................................................................................................... 291
Creating Views Programmatically ............................................................................. 293
For the More Curious: Core Graphics and Quartz ........................................................ 294
For the More Curious: Dirty Rects ............................................................................ 295
For the More Curious: Flipped Views ........................................................................ 295
Challenge: Gradients .............................................................................................. 295
Challenge: Stroke ................................................................................................... 295
Challenge: Make DieView Configurable from Interface Builder ...................................... 295
18. Mouse Events .......................................................................................................... 297

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 Cocoa Programming for OS X

NSResponder ........................................................................................................ 297

NSEvent ............................................................................................................... 297
Getting Mouse Events ............................................................................................. 298
Click to Roll ......................................................................................................... 299
Improving Hit Detection ......................................................................................... 300
Gesture Recognizers ............................................................................................... 301
Challenge: NSBezierPath-based Hit Testing ................................................................ 303
Challenge: A Drawing App ..................................................................................... 303
19. Keyboard Events ...................................................................................................... 305
NSResponder ........................................................................................................ 307
NSEvent ............................................................................................................... 307
Adding Keyboard Input to DieView .......................................................................... 307
Accept first responder ..................................................................................... 308
Receive keyboard events ................................................................................. 308
Putting the dice in Dice .................................................................................. 308
Focus Rings .......................................................................................................... 309
The Key View Loop ............................................................................................... 310
For the More Curious: Rollovers .............................................................................. 310
20. Drawing Text with Attributes ...................................................................................... 313
NSFont ................................................................................................................. 313
NSAttributedString ................................................................................................. 314
Drawing Strings and Attributed Strings ...................................................................... 316
Drawing Text Die Faces .......................................................................................... 317
Extensions .................................................................................................... 318
Getting Your View to Generate PDF Data .................................................................. 318
For the More Curious: NSFontManager ..................................................................... 320
Challenge: Color Text as SpeakLine Speaks It ............................................................ 320
21. Pasteboards and Nil-Targeted Actions ........................................................................... 323
NSPasteboard ........................................................................................................ 324
Add Cut, Copy, and Paste to Dice ............................................................................ 325
Nil-Targeted Actions .............................................................................................. 326
Looking at the XIB file .................................................................................. 328
Menu Item Validation ............................................................................................. 329
For the More Curious: Which Object Sends the Action Message? ................................... 330
For the More Curious: UTIs and the Pasteboard .......................................................... 330
Custom UTIs ................................................................................................ 330
For the More Curious: Lazy Copying ........................................................................ 330
Challenge: Write Multiple Representations ................................................................. 331
Challenge: Menu Item ............................................................................................ 331
22. Drag-and-Drop ......................................................................................................... 333
Make DieView a Drag Source .................................................................................. 333
Starting a drag ............................................................................................... 334
After the drop ............................................................................................... 336
Make DieView a Drag Destination ............................................................................ 337
registerForDraggedTypes(_:) ............................................................................ 338
Add highlighting ............................................................................................ 338
Implement the dragging destination methods ...................................................... 338
For the More Curious: Operation Mask ..................................................................... 339

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Cocoa Programming for OS X

23. NSTimer ................................................................................................................. 341

NSTimer-based Animation ....................................................................................... 341
How Timers Work .................................................................................................. 343
NSTimer and Strong/Weak References ...................................................................... 343
For the More Curious: NSRunLoop .......................................................................... 343
24. Sheets ..................................................................................................................... 345
Adding a Sheet ...................................................................................................... 345
Create the Window Controller .................................................................................. 346
Set Up the Menu Item ............................................................................................ 348
Lay Out the Interface ............................................................................................. 349
Configuring the Die Views ...................................................................................... 352
Present the Sheet ................................................................................................... 353
Modal Windows .................................................................................................... 355
Encapsulating Presentation APIs ............................................................................... 355
Challenge: Encapsulate Sheet Presentation ................................................................. 356
Challenge: Add Menu Item Validation ....................................................................... 357
25. Auto Layout ............................................................................................................ 359
What is Auto Layout? ............................................................................................ 359
Adding Constraints to RaiseMan .............................................................................. 359
Constraints from subview to superview ............................................................. 360
Constraints between siblings ........................................................................... 367
Size constraints ............................................................................................ 368
Intrinsic Content Size ............................................................................................. 370
Creating Layout Constraints Programmatically ............................................................ 371
Visual Format Language ......................................................................................... 371
Does Not Compute, Part 1: Unsatisfiable Constraints ................................................... 373
Does Not Compute, Part 2: Ambiguous Layout ........................................................... 374
For the More Curious: Autoresizing Masks ................................................................ 375
Challenge: Add Vertical Constraints .......................................................................... 376
Challenge: Add Constraints Programmatically ............................................................. 377
26. Localization and Bundles ........................................................................................... 379
Different Mechanisms for Localization ...................................................................... 379
Localizing a XIB File ............................................................................................. 381
Localizing String Literals ........................................................................................ 385
Demystifying NSLocalizedString and genstrings ......................................................... 389
Explicit Ordering of Tokens in Format Strings ............................................................ 390
NSBundle ............................................................................................................. 390
NSBundle’s role in localization ........................................................................ 391
Loading code from bundles ............................................................................. 393
For the More Curious: Localization and Plurality ........................................................ 393
Challenge: Localizing the Default Name for a Newly Added Employee ........................... 394
Challenge: Localizing the Undo Action Names ........................................................... 395
27. Printing ................................................................................................................... 397
Dealing with Pagination .......................................................................................... 397
Adding Printing to RaiseMan ................................................................................... 398
For the More Curious: Are You Drawing to the Screen? ............................................... 402
Challenge: Add Page Numbers ................................................................................. 403
Challenge: Persist Page Setup .................................................................................. 403

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28. Web Services ........................................................................................................... 405

Web Services APIs ................................................................................................. 405
RanchForecast Project ............................................................................................. 406
NSURLSession and asynchronous API design .................................................... 409
NSURLSession, HTTP status codes, and errors ................................................... 413
Add JSON parsing to ScheduleFetcher .............................................................. 414
Lay out the interface ...................................................................................... 416
Opening URLs ...................................................................................................... 418
Safely Working with Untyped Data Structures ............................................................ 419
For the More Curious: Parsing XML ......................................................................... 420
Challenge: Improve Error Handling ........................................................................... 421
Challenge: Add a Spinner ....................................................................................... 421
Challenge: Parse the XML Courses Feed ................................................................... 421
29. Unit Testing ............................................................................................................. 423
Testing in Xcode ................................................................................................... 423
Your First Test ...................................................................................................... 425
A Note on Literals in Testing ................................................................................... 428
Creating a Consistent Testing Environment ................................................................. 428
Sharing Constants .................................................................................................. 430
Refactoring for Testing ........................................................................................... 431
For the More Curious: Access Modifiers .................................................................... 434
For the More Curious: Asynchronous Testing ............................................................. 435
Challenge: Make Course Implement Equatable ............................................................ 436
Challenge: Improve Test Coverage of Web Service Responses ....................................... 437
Challenge: Test Invalid JSON Dictionary ................................................................... 437
30. View Controllers ...................................................................................................... 439
NSViewController .................................................................................................. 440
Starting the ViewControl Application ........................................................................ 441
Windows, Controllers, and Memory Management ........................................................ 444
Container View Controllers ...................................................................................... 444
Add a Tab View Controller ...................................................................................... 445
View Controllers vs. Window Controllers ................................................................... 446
Considerations for OS X 10.9 and Earlier ................................................................... 447
Challenge: SpeakLineViewController ........................................................................ 447
Challenge: Programmatic View Controller .................................................................. 447
Challenge: Add a Window Controller ........................................................................ 448
31. View Swapping and Custom Container View Controllers ................................................. 449
View Swapping ..................................................................................................... 449
NerdTabViewController ........................................................................................... 449
Adding Tab Images ................................................................................................ 454
Challenge: Boxless NerdTabViewController ................................................................ 455
Challenge: NerdSplitViewController .......................................................................... 455
Challenge: Draggable Divider .................................................................................. 455
32. Storyboards ............................................................................................................. 457
A New UI for RanchForecast ................................................................................... 457
Adding the course list ..................................................................................... 462
Adding the web view ..................................................................................... 465
Connecting the Course List Selection with the Web View .............................................. 466

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Creating the CourseListViewControllerDelegate .................................................. 468

Creating the parent view controller ................................................................... 468
For the More Curious: How is the Storyboard Loaded? ................................................. 470
33. Core Animation ........................................................................................................ 471
CALayer .............................................................................................................. 471
Scattered .............................................................................................................. 472
Implicit Animation and Actions ................................................................................ 476
More on CALayer .................................................................................................. 477
Challenge: Show Filenames ..................................................................................... 478
Challenge: Reposition Image Layers ......................................................................... 478
34. Concurrency ............................................................................................................ 479
Multithreading ....................................................................................................... 479
A Deep Chasm Opens Before You ............................................................................ 479
Improving Scattered: Time Profiling in Instruments ..................................................... 481
Introducing Instruments .................................................................................. 481
Analyzing output from Instruments ................................................................... 484
NSOperationQueue ................................................................................................. 484
Multithreaded Scattered .................................................................................. 484
Thread synchronization ................................................................................... 485
For the More Curious: Faster Scattered ...................................................................... 486
Challenge: An Even Better Scattered ......................................................................... 487
35. NSTask ................................................................................................................... 489
ZIPspector ............................................................................................................ 489
Asynchronous Reads .............................................................................................. 493
iPing .................................................................................................................... 494
Challenge: .tar and .tgz Files .................................................................................... 497
36. Distributing Your App ............................................................................................... 499
Build Configurations .............................................................................................. 499
Preprocessor Directives: Using Build Configurations to Change Behavior ......................... 500
Creating a Release Build ......................................................................................... 503
A Few Words on Installers ...................................................................................... 505
App Sandbox ........................................................................................................ 505
Entitlements .................................................................................................. 505
Containers .................................................................................................... 506
Mediated file access and Powerbox ................................................................... 506
The Mac App Store ................................................................................................ 507
Receipt Validation .................................................................................................. 507
Local receipt verification ................................................................................. 507
Server-based verification ................................................................................. 508
37. Afterword ................................................................................................................ 511
Index ........................................................................................................................... 513

xvi
Introduction
If you are developing applications for OS X, or are hoping to do so, this book will be your foundation
and will help you understand Cocoa, the set of frameworks for developing applications for OS X. You,
the developer, are going to love developing for OS X because Cocoa will enable you to write full-
featured applications in a more efficient and elegant manner.

About This Book

This book covers the major design patterns of Cocoa and includes an introduction to the Swift
language. It will also get you started with the most commonly-used developer tools: Xcode and
Instruments. After reading this book, you will understand these major design patterns which will
enable you to understand and use Apple’s documentation – a critical part of any Cocoa developer’s
toolkit – as well as build your own Cocoa applications from scratch.
This book teaches ideas and provides hands-on exercises that show these ideas in action. Each chapter
will guide you through the process of building or adding features to an application.
Often, we will ask you to do something and explain the details or theory afterward. If you are
confused, read a little more. Usually, the help you seek will be only a paragraph or two away.
Because of the hands-on nature of the book, it is essential that you do the exercises and not just read
the words. Doing the exercises will help build the kind of solid understanding that will enable you
to develop on your own when you are finished with this book. You will also learn a great deal from
making mistakes, reading error messages, and figuring out what went wrong – practical experience you
can’t get from reading alone. At first, you may want to stick with what we show you, but later in the
book when you are more comfortable with the environment, you should feel free to experiment with
the exercises and add your own ideas.
Most chapters end with one or two challenge exercises. These exercises are important to do as well.
Taking on these challenges gives you the opportunity to test your skills and problem-solve on your
own.
You can get help with this book at bignerdranch.com/books, where you will find errata and
downloadable solutions for the exercises. You can also post questions and find relevant conversations
on the Big Nerd Ranch forums at forums.bignerdranch.com.
We ask that you not use the downloadable solutions as a shortcut for doing the exercises. The act of
typing in code has far more impact on your learning than most people realize. By typing the code
yourself (and, yes, making mistakes), you will absorb patterns and develop instincts about Cocoa
programming, and you will miss out on these benefits if you rely on the solutions or copy and paste the
code instead.
There is a lot of code in this book. Through that code, we will introduce you to the idioms of the Cocoa
community. Our hope is that by presenting exemplary code, we can help you to become more than a
Cocoa developer – a stylish Cocoa developer.
Most of the time, Cocoa fulfills the following promise: Common things are easy, and uncommon things
are possible. If you find yourself writing many lines of code to do something rather ordinary, you are
probably on the wrong track. There is a popular adage in the community which you should bear in
mind: Don’t fight the framework. Cocoa is opinionated and you will benefit greatly from adapting your
way of doing things to its way of doing things.

xvii
Introduction

Prerequisites
This book is written for programmers and assumes that you are familiar with basic programming
concepts (like functions, variables, and loops) as well as object-oriented concepts (like classes, objects,
and inheritance). If you do not fit this profile, you will find this book tough going. You are not expected
to have any experience with Mac programming.
One of the challenges of learning Cocoa programming is learning the Swift language. If you have a
basic foundation in programming and know something about objects, you will find learning Swift
to be easy. This book includes three chapters to introduce to you to the language. Then you will
learn more Swift as you build Cocoa applications throughout the book. If you would prefer a gentler
introduction, start with Apple’s The Swift Programming Language, available in the iBooks store or
from developer.apple.com/swift, offers a more gentle introduction. Or, if you can wait until Summer
2015, you can read Swift Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide first.
This is a hands-on book and assumes that you have access to OS X and the developer tools. The book
requires OS X Yosemite (10.10) or higher. The exercises are written for Xcode 6.3 and Swift 1.2.
We strongly recommend that you join Apple’s Mac Developer Program at developer.apple.com/
programs. Joining the program gives you access to pre-release versions of Xcode and OS X. These
can be very useful when trying to stay ahead of Apple’s development curve. In addition, you must be a
member of the developer program to distribute your apps on the App Store.

Typographical conventions
To make the book easier to follow, we have used several typographical conventions.
In Swift, class names are always capitalized. In this book, we have also made them appear in a
monospaced bold font. In Swift, method names start with a lowercase letter. Here, method names will
also appear in a monospaced bold font. For example, you might see “The class NSWindowController
has the method showWindow(_:).”
Other literals, including instance variable names that you would see in code, will appear in a
regular monospaced font. Also, filenames will appear in this same font. Thus, you might see “In
MyClass.swift, set the optional favoriteColor to nil.”

Code samples in this book appear in the regular monospaced font. New portions, which you will need
to type yourself, will appear in bold. Code that you should delete is struck-through.

What’s new in the fifth edition?

This fifth edition includes technologies introduced in OS X 10.8, 10.9, and 10.10. It is updated
for Xcode 6.3 and Swift 1.2. It includes coverage of Swift basics, Auto Layout, unit testing, view
controllers and expanded coverage of view swapping, storyboards, modernized localization and web
services APIs, JSON parsing, Key-Value Validation, and a strong emphasis on demonstrating best
practices for application architecture.

The Story of Cocoa

Once upon a time, two guys named Steve started a company called Apple Computer in their garage.
The company grew rapidly, so they hired an experienced executive named John Sculley to be its CEO.

xviii
 NeXTSTEP and OpenStep

After a few conflicts, John Sculley moved Steve Jobs to a position where he had no control over the
company. Steve Jobs left to form another computer company, NeXT Computer.
NeXT hired a small team of brilliant engineers. This small team developed a computer, an operating
system, a printer, a factory, and a set of development tools. Each piece was years ahead of competing
technologies. Unfortunately, the computer and the printer were commercial failures. In 1993, the
factory closed, and NeXT Computer, Inc. became NeXT Software, Inc. The operating system and the
development tools continued to sell under the name NeXTSTEP.

NeXTSTEP and OpenStep

NeXTSTEP was very popular with scientists, investment banks, and intelligence agencies. These
groups found that NeXTSTEP enabled them to turn their ideas into applications faster than any other
technology. In particular, NeXTSTEP had three important features:

a Unix-based operating system

NeXT decided to use Unix as the core of NeXTSTEP. It relied on the source code for BSD Unix
from the University of California at Berkeley. Why Unix? Unix crashed much less frequently
than Microsoft Windows or Mac OS and came with powerful, reliable networking capabilities.

a powerful window server

A window server takes events from the user and forwards them to the applications. The
application then sends drawing commands back to the window server to update what the user
sees. One of the nifty things about the NeXT window server is that the drawing code that
goes to the window server is the same drawing code that would be sent to the printer. Thus, a
programmer has to write the drawing code only once, and it can then be used for display on the
screen or printing.
If you have used Unix machines before, you are probably familiar with the X window server.
The window server for OS X is completely different but fulfills the same function as the X
window server: It gets events from the user, forwards them to the applications, and puts data
from the applications onto the screen.

an elegant set of libraries and tools

NeXTSTEP came with a set of libraries and tools to enable programmers to deal with the
window server in an elegant manner. The libraries were called frameworks. In 1993, the
frameworks and tools were revised and renamed OpenStep.
Programmers loved OpenStep because they could experiment more easily with new ideas. In
fact, Tim Berners-Lee developed the first web browser and web server on NeXTSTEP using the
OpenStep libraries and tools. Securities analysts could code and test new financial models much
more quickly. Colleges could develop the applications that made their research possible. We do
not know what the intelligence community was using it for, but they bought thousands of copies
of OpenStep.

From NeXTSTEP to OS X to iOS

For many years, Apple Computer had been working to develop an operating system with many of the
same features as NeXTSTEP. This effort, known as Project Copland, gradually spun out of control,

xix
Introduction

and Apple finally decided to pull the plug and buy the next version of Mac OS instead. After surveying
the existing operating systems, Apple selected NeXTSTEP. Because NeXT was small, Apple simply
bought the whole company in December 1996. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple.
NeXTSTEP became Mac OS X, and OpenStep became Cocoa. In 2001, the first desktop version
of Mac OS X was released with several more to follow. In 2012, Apple dropped the “Mac,” and the
operating system became known as OS X.
The mutation of NeXTSTEP didn’t stop with OS X. iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads,
is based on OS X, and iOS’s Cocoa Touch is built on the same foundations as Cocoa. As a developer
you will find that your knowledge transfers well between the two: the design patterns are identical, and
many of the APIs are very similar if not the same.

OSX, Unix, and Cocoa

OS X is Unix underneath, and you can get all the standard Unix programs (such as the Apache Web
server) on OS X. It is extremely stable, and the user interface is spectacular.
(Apple has made the source code to the Unix part of OS X available under the name Darwin. A
community of developers continues to work to improve Darwin. You can learn more about Darwin at
www.macosforge.org.)

As shown in Figure 1, the window server and your application are Unix processes. Cocoa is your
application’s interface to the window server to receive events and draw to the screen. At the same time
it has access to the Unix layer where it can make lower level calls.

Figure 1  Where is Cocoa?

Introducing the Swift Language

Programming in Cocoa was initially done in a language called Objective-C. Objective-C is an
extension of the C programming language that adds constructs for object-oriented programming. In
that respect it bears a superficial resemblance to C++, but the two are extremely different. Unlike C++,
Objective-C is weakly typed and extremely powerful. With power comes responsibility: Objective-C
also allows programmers to make ridiculous errors.
Over the past several years, Apple’s engineers have gone to heroic lengths to make Objective-C faster
and add more modern features, but in order to move forward, a new language was needed, free of the
limitations of the past. Swift, developed by a small team led by Chris Lattner, was the answer. Apple
introduced Swift in 2014.

xx
 The Cocoa Frameworks

Swift maintains the expressiveness of Objective-C while introducing a syntax that is significantly
more rich, succinct, and – in the opinion of some – readable. It emphasizes type safety and introduces
advanced features such as optionals and generics. Swift is much stricter than Objective-C and will not
allow you to make as many ridiculous errors.
Although we will focus on Swift, you can still write Cocoa code in Objective-C, even alongside Swift,
compiling the two in the same project.
Most importantly, Swift allows the use of these new features while relying on the same tested, elegant
Cocoa frameworks that developers have built upon for years and years.

The Cocoa Frameworks

A framework is a collection of classes that are intended to be used together. That is, the classes are
compiled together into a reusable library of binary code. Any related resources are put into a directory
with the library. The directory is given the extension .framework. You can find the built-in frameworks
for your machine in /System/Library/Frameworks. Cocoa is made up of three frameworks:

• Foundation: Every object-oriented programming language needs the standard value, collection,
and utility classes. Strings, dates, lists, threads, and timers are in the Foundation framework. All
Cocoa apps, from command-line tools to fully-featured GUI apps, use Foundation. Foundation is
also available on iOS.

• AppKit: All things related to the user interface are in the AppKit framework. These include
windows, buttons, text fields, events, and drawing classes. AppKit is built on top of Foundation
and is used in practically every graphical application on OS X.

• Core Data: Core Data makes it easy to save objects to a file and then reload them into memory. It
is a persistence framework.

In addition to the three Cocoa frameworks, over a hundred frameworks ship with OS X. The
frameworks offer a wide variety of features and functionality. For example, AVFoundation is great
for working with audio and video, AddressBook provides an API to the user’s contacts (with their
permission), and and SpriteKit is a full-featured 2D game engine with physics. You can pick and
choose from these frameworks to suit the needs of your application. You can also create your
own frameworks from the classes that you create. Typically, if a set of classes is used in several
applications, you will want to turn them into a framework.
This book will focus on the Cocoa frameworks and especially Foundation and AppKit because they
will form the basis of most Cocoa applications that you will write. Once you have mastered these,
other frameworks will be easier to understand.

Tools for Cocoa Programming

Xcode is the IDE (integrated development environment) used for Cocoa development.
Xcode is available for free on the Mac App Store. Pre-release versions can be downloaded at
developer.apple.com/mac. (You will need to join Apple’s Mac Developer Program to access these.) We
strongly recommend using Xcode 6.3 with Swift 1.2 or later for the exercises in this book.
Xcode tracks all the resources that go into an application: code, images, sounds, and so on. You edit
your code in Xcode, and Xcode compiles and launches your application. Xcode can also be used to

xxi
Introduction

invoke and control the debugger. Behind the scenes, swiftc (Apple’s Swift compiler) will be used to
compile your code, and LLDB (Low Level Debugger) will help you find your errors.
Inside Xcode, you will use the Interface Builder editor as a GUI builder to lay out windows and
add UI elements to those windows. But Interface Builder is more than a simple GUI builder. In
Interface Builder, you can create objects and edit their attributes. Most of those objects are UI elements
from the AppKit framework such as buttons and text fields, but some will be instances of classes that
you create.
You will use Instruments to profile your application’s CPU, memory, and filesystem usage. Instruments
can also be used to debug memory-management issues. Instruments is built on top of dtrace, which
makes it possible to create new instruments.

Some Advice on Learning

All sorts of people come to our class: the bright and the not so bright, the motivated and the lazy,
the experienced and the novice. Inevitably, the people who get the most from the class share one
characteristic: they remain focused on the topic at hand.
The first trick to maintaining focus is to get enough sleep: ten hours of sleep each night while you are
studying new ideas. Before dismissing this idea, try it. You will wake up refreshed and ready to learn.
Caffeine is not a substitute for sleep.
The second trick is to stop thinking about yourself. While learning something new, many students will
think, “Damn, this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid.” Because stupidity is such an unthinkably
terrible thing in our culture, they will then spend hours constructing arguments to explain why they are
intelligent yet having difficulties. The moment you start down this path, you have lost your focus.
Aaron used to have a boss named Rock. Rock earned a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech, but never
had a job that used his knowledge of the heavens. When asked if he regretted getting the degree, he
replied, “Actually, my degree in astrophysics has proved to be very valuable. Some things in this world
are just hard. When I am struggling with something, I sometimes think ‘Damn, this is hard for me. I
wonder if I am stupid,’ and then I remember that I have a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech; I must
not be stupid.”
Before going any further, assure yourself that you are not stupid and that some things are just hard.
Armed with this affirmation and a well-rested mind, you are ready to conquer Cocoa.

xxii
 3
Structures and Classes

At this point you should be somewhat familiar with using Swift’s standard types: strings, arrays,
enums, etc. It is time to move on to bigger and better things: defining your own types. In this chapter,
you will build a simple 2D physics simulation. You will create your own structure and a few classes,
and you will learn about the differences between them.

Structures
In Cocoa, structures are typically used to represent groupings of data. For example, there is NSPoint,
which represents a point in 2D space with an X and a Y value. As your first structure you will create a
2D vector structure.
Create a new playground. From Xcode’s File menu, select New... → Playground. Name the playground
Physics and save it with the rest of your projects.

Start by defining the Vector structure:

import Cocoa

struct Vector {
var x: Double
var y: Double
}

Much like C structures, Swift structures are composite data types. They are composed of one or more
fields, or properties, each of which has a specified type. A few lines down, create an instance of Vector
and access its properties:

let gravity = Vector(x: 0.0, y: -9.8) // {x 0, y -9.800000000000001}

gravity.x // 0
gravity.y // -9.800000000000001

You just used Swift’s automatic initializer to create an instance of this structure. The automatic
initializer has a parameter for each property in the structure. If you were to add a z field, this code
would cause a compiler error because it lacks a z parameter. (Do not worry about the zeros; that is just
typical floating point fun.)
You can provide your own initializers, but when you do, the automatic initializer is no longer provided.
Go back to Vector and add an initializer that takes no parameters and initializes x and y to 0.

41
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

struct Vector {
var x: Double
var y: Double

init() {
x = 0
y = 0
}
}

Initializers in Swift use the init keyword, followed by the parameter list, and then the body of the
initializer. Within the body, the x and y properties are assigned directly.
An initializer must initialize all of the properties of its structure.
As we warned, defining this initializer has caused the automatic one to vanish, causing an error in the
playground. You can easily define it manually, however:
struct Vector {
var x: Double
var y: Double

init() {
x = 0
y = 0
}

init(x: Double, y: Double) {

self.x = x
self.y = y
}
}

A Swift programmer would say that this initializer takes two parameters, x and y, both of type Double.
What is self? It represents the instance of the type that is being initialized. Using self.propertyName
is usually unnecessary (you did not use it in init()), but because the initializer’s parameter names
match the names of the properties you must use self to tell the compiler that you mean the property
and not the parameter.
Before continuing, let’s make an improvement. As the Vector structure stands, its two initializers have
independent code paths. It would be better to have them use one code path by having the parameterless
initializer call the initializer which takes both x and y.
struct Vector {
var x: Double
var y: Double

init() {
x = 0
y = 0
self.init(x: 0, y: 0)
}

init(x: Double, y: Double) {

self.x = x
self.y = y
}
}

42
 Instance methods

A single code path for initialization is not required for structures, but it is a good habit to get into as
you will use it when working with classes.

Instance methods
Methods allow you to add functionality to your data types. In Swift, you can add methods to structures
as well as classes (and enums!). Instance methods operate within the context of a single instance of the
type. Add an instance method for multiplying a vector by a scalar:

struct Vector {
...

init(x: Double, y: Double) {

self.x = x
self.y = y
}

func vectorByAddingVector(vector: Vector) -> Vector {

return Vector(x: self.x + vector.x,
y: self.y + vector.y)
}
}

The func keyword in the context of a structure indicates that this is a method. It takes a single
parameter of type Double and returns an instance of Vector.
Try this new method out:

let gravity = Vector(x: 0.0, y: -9.8) // {x 0, y -9.800000000000001}

gravity.x
gravity.y
let twoGs = gravity.vectorByAddingVector(gravity) // {x 0, y -19.6}

What is the name of this method? In conversation you would call it vectorByAddingVector, but in this
text we include parameters, like this: vectorByAddingVector(_:). By default, the first parameter of a
method is not named – thus the underscore.
Why not name the first parameter? Because the convention – inherited from Objective-C and Cocoa
– is that the base name of the method includes the name of the first parameter, in this case Vector.
Suppose you added another parameter to that method. What would it look like?

func vectorByAddingVector(vector: Vector, numberOfTimes: Int) -> Vector {

var result = self
for _ in 0..<numberOfTimes {
...

This method would be called vectorByAddingVector(_:numberOfTimes:). Note that there is a colon

for each parameter.
This can lead to verbose method names, but the code actually becomes very readable. No guessing or
relying on the IDE to tell you what the third parameter is!
By default, each parameter’s internal name is the same as its external name (except the first
parameter, that is). In vectorByAddingVector(_:numberOfTimes:), the second parameter is named

43
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

numberOfTimes. That is certainly very descriptive, but you might prefer to use a shorter name (like
times) within the method. In that case you would explicitly set the internal parameter name like this:

func vectorByAddingVector(vector: Vector, numberOfTimes times: Int) -> Vector {

var result = self
for _ in 0..<times {
...

The method’s signature has not changed. For those calling it, its name is still
vectorByAddingVector(_:numberOfTimes:), but internally you have the satisfaction of using the
name you want.

Using self in instance methods

As in initializers, self represents the instance that the method is being called on. As long as there is no
conflict with named parameters or local variables, however, it is entirely optional, so we prefer to leave
it off. Make this change to vectorByAddingVector(_:).

struct Vector {
...

func vectorByAddingVector(vector: Vector) -> Vector {

return Vector(x: self.x + vector.x,
y: self.y + vector.y)
return Vector(x: x + vector.x,
y: y + vector.y)
}
}

Operator Overloading
By overloading operators you can make your own types work with common (and even uncommon)
operators. This ability falls deep beyond the “with great power comes great responsibility” line.
However, vectors are a natural and respectable application for this technique.
To define an operator overload you simply add a function that takes the appropriate types. To start with,
instead of calling vectorByAddingVector(_:), it would be nice to use the + operator. Overload + and *
for adding and scaling vectors, respectively.

struct Vector {
...
}

func +(left: Vector, right: Vector) -> Vector {

return left.vectorByAddingVector(right)
}
func *(left: Vector, right: Double) -> Vector {
return Vector(x: left.x * right , y: left.y * right)
}

Now you can very succinctly manipulate vectors:

let twoGs = gravity.vectorByAddingVector(gravity)

let twoGs = gravity + gravity
let twoGsAlso = gravity * 2.0

44
 Classes

Note that the order of types for binary operators like * and + is important. In order to write 2.0 *
gravity you will need to implement another operator overload function:

func *(left: Double, right: Vector) -> Vector {

return right * left
}

Classes
Now that you have the beginnings of a robust vector type, let’s put it to work. Your 2D physics
simulation will consist of two classes: Particle, which represents a single moving object within the
simulation, and Simulation, which contains an array of Particle instances.
Classes are very similar to structures. They have a lot of the same features: initializers, properties,
computed properties, and methods. They have a significant difference, however, which we will discuss
once the simulation is up and running.
Start by defining the Particle class in your playground. The position is not important, as long as
it is above or below (but not inside!) the Vector structure. A Particle has three Vector properties:
position, velocity, and acceleration.

struct Vector {
...
}

class Particle {

var position: Vector

var velocity: Vector
var acceleration: Vector

Classes and structures differ significantly in terms of initializers. Most noticeably, classes do not have
automatic initializers, so you will see a compiler error: Class 'Particle' has no initializers.
Fix this by adding an initializer to Particle:

class Particle {

var position: Vector

var velocity: Vector
var acceleration: Vector

init(position: Vector) {
self.position = position
self.velocity = Vector()
self.acceleration = Vector()
}
}

You do not need to provide a parameter for every property in a class like you did in Vector’s
init(x:y:). You just need to initialize everything. As with initializers for structures, a class’s

45
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

initializer must initialize all of its properties before returning or performing any other tasks. By
requiring this of initializers the Swift compiler guarantees that every instance is fully initialized before
it is put to work.
Another approach is to give properties default values:

class Particle {

var position: Vector

var velocity: Vector = Vector()
var acceleration: Vector = Vector()

init(position: Vector) {
self.position = position
}
}

In a simple case like this, there is not a clear benefit to either approach.

Designated and convenience initializers

Like structures, classes can have multiple initializers. At least one of them will be the designated
initializer. Remember how you refactored Vector’s init() to call init(x:y:)? A designated
initializer is an initializer which other, non-designated initializers – convenience initializers – must
call. The rule of thumb with designated initializers is that they are typically the one with the most
parameters. Most classes will only have one designated initializer.
The init(position:) initializer is the Particle class’s designated initializer. Add a convenience
initializer:

class Particle {
...

init(position: Vector) {
self.position = position
self.velocity = Vector()
self.acceleration = Vector()
}

convenience init() {
self.init(position: Vector())
}

There is an exception to these designated initializer rules: required initializers, which you will see in
Chapter 12.

Add an instance method

A particle has a position, velocity, and acceleration. It should also know a little about particle dynamics
– specifically, how to update its position and velocity over time. Add an instance method, tick(_:), to
perform these calculations.

46
 Add an instance method

class Particle {
...

convenience init() {
self.init(position: Vector())
}

func tick(dt: NSTimeInterval) {

velocity = velocity + acceleration * dt
position = position + velocity * dt
position.y = max(0, position.y)
}

The tick(_:) method takes an NSTimeInterval parameter, dt, the number of seconds to simulate.
NSTimeInterval is an alias for Double.

Below the definition of Particle, define the Simulation class, which will have an array of Particle
objects and its own tick(_:) method:

class Particle {
...
}

class Simulation {

var particles: [Particle] = []

var time: NSTimeInterval = 0.0

func addParticle(particle: Particle) {

particles.append(particle)
}

func tick(dt: NSTimeInterval) {

for particle in particles {
particle.acceleration = particle.acceleration + gravity
particle.tick(dt)
particle.acceleration = Vector()
}
time += dt
}

The Simulation class has no initializers defined since all of its properties have default values. The
for-in loop iterates over the contents of the particles property. The tick(_:) method applies
constant acceleration due to gravity to each of the particles before simulating them for the time
interval.

Before you warm up the simulator and add a particle, add a line to evaluate particle.position.y.
You will use this shortly with the playground’s Value History. Additionally, add some code to remove
particles once they drop below y = 0:

47
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

class Simulation {
...

func tick(dt: NSTimeInterval) {

for particle in particles {
particle.acceleration = particle.acceleration + gravity
particle.tick(dt)
particle.acceleration = Vector()
particle.position.y
}
time += dt
particles = particles.filter { particle in
let live = particle.position.y > 0.0
if !live {
println("Particle terminated at time \(self.time)")
}
return live
}
}

The last chunk of code filters the particles array, removing any particles that have fallen to the
ground. This is a closure, and it is OK if you do not understand it at this point. You will learn more
about closures in Chapter 15.
Now you are ready to run the simulator. Create an instance of the simulator and a particle, add the
particle to the simulation, and see what happens.

class Simulation {
...
}

let simulation = Simulation()

let ball = Particle()

ball.acceleration = Vector(x: 0, y: 100)
simulation.addParticle(ball)

while simulation.particles.count > 0 && simulation.time < 500 {

simulation.tick(1.0)
}

You should see the playground tally up (20 times) on a number of lines. If the playground runs the
simulation continuously, you can stop it by commenting out the while loop. Select the three lines and
hit Command-/ to toggle the comment marks:

// while simulation.particles.count > 0 && simulation.time < 500 {

// simulation.tick(1.0)
// }

Double-check your code against the listings above, in particular the lines that filter the particles array
and the line that increments time.

48
 Inheritance

Once you have the simulation running as expected, click the Variables View circle in the playground
sidebar on the line that reads particle.position.y, as shown in Figure 3.1. A graph will appear,
showing the Y values of the particle over time. The X axis on this graph represents iterations over time
and not the X coordinate of the particle.

Figure 3.1  Graph data history of particle.position.y

Inheritance
Suppose you wanted to simulate a particle that had different behavior than the Particle class you
have already implemented: a rocket that propels itself with thrust over a certain period of time. Since
Particle already knows about physics, it would be natural to extend and modify its behavior through
subclassing.

Define the Rocket class as a subclass of Particle.

49
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

class Rocket: Particle {

let thrust: Double

var thrustTimeRemaining: NSTimeInterval
let direction = Vector(x: 0, y: 1)

convenience init(thrust: Double, thrustTime: NSTimeInterval) {

self.init(position: Vector(), thrust: thrust, thrustTime: thrustTime)
}

init(position: Vector, thrust: Double, thrustTime: NSTimeInterval) {

self.thrust = thrust
self.thrustTimeRemaining = thrustTime
super.init(position: position)
}

The thrust property represents the magnitude of the rocket’s thrust. thrustTimeRemaining is the
number of seconds that the thrust will be applied for. direction is the direction that the thrust will be
applied in.
Take a minute to go through the initializers you just typed in. Which is the designated initializer?
(Remember the rule of thumb about designated initializers?)
In order to guarantee that a class’s properties are initialized, initializers are only inherited if a subclass
does not add any properties needing initialization. Thus, Rocket provides its own initializers and calls
the superclass’s designated initializer.
Next you will override the tick(_:) method, which will do a little math to calculate the acceleration
due to thrust and apply it before calling the superclass’s – Particle’s – tick(_:) method.

class Rocket: Particle {

...

init(position: Vector, thrust: Double, thrustTime: NSTimeInterval) {

self.thrust = thrust
self.thrustTimeRemaining = thrustTime
super.init(position: position)
}

override func tick(dt: NSTimeInterval) {

if thrustTimeRemaining > 0.0 {
let thrustTime = min(dt, thrustTimeRemaining)
let thrustToApply = thrust * thrustTime
let thrustForce = direction * thrustToApply
acceleration = acceleration + thrustForce
thrustTimeRemaining -= thrustTime
}
super.tick(dt)
}

Finally, create an instance of Rocket and add it to the simulation in place of the ball:

50
 Computed Properties

let simulation = Simulation()

let ball = Particle()

ball.acceleration = Vector(x: 0, y: 100)
simulation.addParticle(ball)
// let ball = Particle()
// ball.acceleration = Vector(x: 0, y: 100)
// simulation.addParticle(ball)

let rocket = Rocket(thrust: 10.0, thrustTime: 60.0)

simulation.addParticle(rocket)

The simulation will run for 70 “seconds” with these parameters. The Value History shows quite a
different profile! (Figure 3.2)

Figure 3.2  The rocket’s Y position over time

Note that inheritance is one key differentiator between classes and structures: structures do not support
inheritance.

Computed Properties
It is frequently useful to find a vector’s length or magnitude. You could do this by adding a function
returning a Double:

51
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

struct Vector {
...

func length() -> Double {

return sqrt(x*x + y*y)
}
}

However, it is much more natural to think of this as a read-only property. In Swift the general term for
this is computed property, which is in contrast to the stored properties you have been using so far. A
read-only computed property version of length would look like this:

struct Vector {
...

var length: Double {

get {
return sqrt(x*x + y*y)
}
}
}

This read-only computed property pattern (called a “getter”) is so common, in fact, that Swift provides
a shorthand means of expressing it. Add this to Vector:

struct Vector {
...

var length: Double {

return sqrt(x*x + y*y)
}
}

At other times it is useful to have a getter and setter for a computed property. This tends to be used
to alias other properties or to transform a value before it is used elsewhere. For example, you could
abstract the setting of the textField from the RandomPassword with a computed property:

class MainWindowController: NSWindowController {

@IBOutlet weak var textField: NSTextField!

var generatedPassword: String {

set {
textField.stringValue = newValue
}
get {
return textField.stringValue
}
}

...

@IBAction func generatePassword(sender: AnyObject) {

let length = 8
generatedPassword = generateRandomString(length)
}
}

52
 Reference and Value Types

Computed properties do not have any storage associated with them. If you need to store a value, you
must create a separate stored property for it.

Reference and Value Types

Structures and classes are far more alike in Swift than they are in most languages. However, there is
one major difference in how they operate: classes are reference types; structures, enums, and tuples are
value types.
What does it mean to be a value type? For one thing, a value type is always treated as a single value,
even if it is composed of several individual values via its properties.
In practical terms, this means that when a value type is assigned or passed as a parameter, a copy is
made. The following code demonstrates the effect with the Vector structure:

var vector0 = Vector(x: 0, y: 0) vector0 = {x 0, y 0}

var vector1 = vector0 vector0 = {x 0, y 0}, vector1 = {x 0, y 0}
vector0.x = 1 vector0 = {x 1, y 0}, vector1 = {x 0, y 0}

When vector0 is assigned to vector1, the entire value of vector0 is copied into the memory
represented by vector1. When vector0 is changed, vector1 is unaffected.
Contrast this behavior with classes, which, again, are reference types:

let ball0 = Particle() ball0 -> Particle: {x 0, y 0} ...

let ball1 = ball0 ball0, ball1 -> Particle: {x 0, y 0} ...
ball0.particle.x = 1 ball0, ball1 -> Particle: {x 1, y 0} ...

Even though you assign ball0 to ball1, there is still only one Particle instance in existence; no
copies are made. The ball0 constant is a reference to the instance, and when ball0 is assigned to
ball1, ball1 is then a reference to the same instance.

(A reference is similar to a pointer in C-based languages. However, a pointer stores the actual memory
address of the object and you can access that address directly. A Swift reference does not provide direct
access to the address of the object being referenced.)
There is another reference type. Functions are types so that a function can be passed in to other
functions as a defined parameter, or even assigned to a property. This is the basis of closures, which
you saw briefly earlier in this chapter, and which you will see again in Chapter 15.

Implications of reference and value types

Passing by reference instead of by value has two main implications. The first has to do with mutability.
With a value type the code manipulating that value has complete control over it.
Reference types, however, are much different: any part of the software that has a reference to an
instance of a reference type can change it. In object oriented programming this can be desirable, but in
complex (and especially multithreaded) software it is a liability. An object being changed “behind your
back” can cause crashes at best and strange or difficult-to-debug behavior at worst.
Swift constants help further illustrate this point. A constant value type cannot be changed once it is
defined, period:

53
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

let vector: Vector

if someCondition {
vector = Vector(x: 0, y: 1)
}
else {
vector = Vector(x: 0, y: -1)
}
vector.x = 1 // Error: Immutable value 'vector' may only be initialized once

A constant reference provides no such protection. Only the reference itself is constant.
let cannonball = Particle()
cannonball.velocity = Vector(x: 100, y: 5) // No error!

Note that constants within a class or structure are constant. The Rocket class’s thrust property,
defined with let and given an initial value in the initializer, cannot be changed:
let rocket = Rocket(thrust: 10.0, thrustTime: 60.0)
rocket.thrust = 3 // Error: Cannot assign 'thrust' in 'rocket'

Choosing between reference and value types

How does a Cocoa programmer decide whether to use a structure or a class for their new type? In order
to answer that you will need to know how the type will be used.
The vast majority of Cocoa is built on reference types: subclasses of the Objective-C base class
NSObject, which provides a lot of important functionality for Cocoa. As such, large portions of your
app, namely the controller and view layers, will also need to descend from NSObject.
The model layer is where the answer gets fuzzy. Model-oriented Cocoa technologies such as KVC,
KVO, and Bindings also depend on NSObject, so many app’s models will also. For other apps whose
models are perhaps more heavy on logic and computation, and less about binding to the UI, you are
free to choose the Swift type that makes the most sense for the problem you are trying to solve. Do you
want the shared mutable state provided by reference types, or do you prefer the safety of value types?
Both have their advantages and costs.
Cocoa, with its deep roots in MVC and Objective-C, will always rely heavily on reference types. In
comparison to Objective-C, however, Swift takes great strides in making value types powerful. As a
Cocoa programmer, both will be important tools in your belt.

Making Types Printable

If you use a Vector value in string interpolation, you will not get a very pleasing result:
println("Gravity is \(gravity).") "Gravity is __lldb_expr_247.Vector."

You can improve this by conforming to the Printable protocol, which looks like this:
protocol Printable {
var description: String { get }
}

We will cover protocols in more detail in Chapter 6, but the short version is that a protocol defines a
set of properties or methods. In order to conform to a protocol, your type must implement the required
properties and methods.

54
 Swift and Objective-C

To conform to Printable, you must implement a read-only computed property called description to
return a String. Start by declaring that Vector conforms to Printable:

struct Vector {
struct Vector: Printable {
var x: Double
var y: Double

Finally, implement description:

struct Vector: Printable {

...

var description: String {

return "(\(x), \(y))"
}
}

Your Vectors now look great in strings:

println("Gravity is \(gravity).") "Gravity is (0.0, -9.8)."

Swift and Objective-C

Although you will write your classes in Swift, the classes in the Cocoa frameworks are written in
Objective-C. Swift was designed to work seamlessly with Objective-C classes. While you can write
Cocoa apps in pure Swift, without a line of Objective-C, it is important to have a basic understanding
of how Objective-C works.
Objective-C methods (which are only available on classes, not structures) are not called like functions
or like Swift methods. Instead of calling a method on an object, Objective-C sends the object a
message.
A message consists of a receiver, selector, and any parameters. The selector is the name of the method
you want executed. The receiver is the object that you want to execute that method. Here is an example
of sending a message in Objective-C:

NSString *newString;
newString = [originalString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString: @"Mavericks"
withString: @"Yosemite"];

In this example, the receiver is originalString, an instance of NSString, and the selector is
stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:withString:. The parameters are the two NSString
literals.
Note that the selector in the message is “the name of the method.” It is not the method itself or even a
reference to it. You can think of a selector as a glorified string.
Objective-C classes know how to receive a message, match the selector with a method of the same
name, and execute the method. Or they can do something else with the selector, like forward it in
a message to another class. Relying on selectors and message-passing is relatively unique among
languages in modern use, and its dynamic nature made the powerful design patterns of Cocoa, and later
iOS, possible.

55
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

Calling a method is a cut-and-dried process. Either the object implements the method or it does not,
and this can be determined at compile time. Passing a message, on the other hand, is dynamic. At
runtime, the object is asked, “Does your class implement a method with this name?” If yes, the method
with that name is executed. If no, the message is run up the inheritance hierarchy: The superclass
is asked, “Do you have a method with this name?” If that class does not have the method, then its
superclass is asked, and so on. If the message reaches NSObject at the top of the hierarchy, and
NSObject says, “No, I do not have a method with that name,” then an exception occurs, and your app
will halt.
You are developing in Swift, which means that you are not writing message sends in code; you are
calling methods. These Swift methods have to be named in such a way that the Swift compiler can turn
a method call into a message send when the receiver is an Objective-C object.
If you were to write the above message send in Swift, it would look like this:

let newString = originalString.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("Mavericks"

withString: "Yosemite")

Remember, the Swift method has two parameters in the parameter list, but only one has a
name. This is why you see methods named in this text and in Apple’s documentation with
underscores where you expect a parameter name. For example, this method is listed as
stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString(_:withString:).

Working with Foundation Types

In Objective-C, a number of familiar types are implemented as classes as part of the Foundation
framework: NSString, NSNumber, NSArray, NSDictionary, and NSSet. Because Cocoa was built for
Objective-C, you will often run into these classes when working with the Cocoa APIs. The good news
is that Apple has made transitioning between the Swift and Foundation (Objective-C) counterparts
relatively painless. They are toll-free bridged, meaning that there is minimal computational cost in
converting between the two.

Basic bridging
Swift types are automatically bridged to their Foundation counterparts:

let string = "Howdy"

let objcString: NSString = string

The reverse is not true, however:

let swiftString: String = objcString // Error!

Instead, you must explicitly cast it using as:

let swiftString: String = objcString as String // Ok!

Another class that you may see is NSNumber. Because Foundation collections can only store objects, in
order to store numbers they must be represented by an object. NSNumber is the class that Objective-C
programmers use for this task. Swift numbers also bridge easily with NSNumber:

let objcNumber: NSNumber = 3

let swiftNumber = objcNumber as Int

56
 Bridging with collections

Bridging with collections

Bridging with collections is similar, but a wrinkle emerges when casting from a Foundation array back
to Swift:

let array = [1, 2, 4, 8]

let objcArray: NSArray = array // So far so good...
let swiftArray: [Int] = objcArray as [Int] // Error!

You may be surprised to learn that Foundation collections can hold any kind of object – that is, the
collection’s contents do not have to be of the same type! You will see the Swift type AnyObject used
with these collections, like this: [AnyObject]. (If you are familiar with Objective-C, AnyObject has the
same meaning as id.)
The solutions to this problem are similar to unwrapping optionals: there are safe and unsafe paths. The
unsafe path is to use as!, the forced cast operator:
let swiftArray: [Int] = objcArray as! [Int]

As with forced unwrapping, if the type cannot be cast successfully your app will crash. If you
are certain that the type is correct, such as when the value is coming from a known API, this is a
reasonable assumption to make.
If you are not so certain, you should use the optional type casting operator as?, which will evaluate to
nil if the values cannot be safely cast:

if let swiftArray: [Int] = objcArray as? [Int] {

...
}

This situation is most commonly seen with Cocoa APIs using NSDictionary: it is typical for the keys
to all be NSStrings, but the types of the values commonly differ depending on the key. We will further
discuss how to handle these untyped collections safely in Chapter 28.
Suppose you were working with an Objective-C class that supplied a dictionary. When Swift imports
the class, it does a basic level of conversion, but it does not know what type the method actually
returns, so it is shown as [NSObject : AnyObject]!:

class NSProcessInfo: NSObject {

...
var environment: [NSObject : AnyObject]! { get }
...
}

To work with this API you first need to know the actual types contained in the dictionary, which can
usually be found in the documentation. You will then need to safely cast the result to Swift types:

let processInfo = NSProcessInfo()

if let environment = processInfo.environment as? [String : String] {
if let path: String = environment["PATH"] {
println("Path is: \(path)")
}
}

57
Chapter 3  Structures and Classes

It is important to remember that Swift strings and collections are value types and the Foundation types
are all reference types. While Swift’s compiler can enforce the constant-ness of an array, with NSArray
the same array object may be referenced by many parts of an application.
The Foundation classes we have discussed so far are all immutable, meaning that they cannot be
changed – equivalent to being defined with Swift’s let. Each of them has a mutable subclass:
NSMutableArray, NSMutableString, and so forth. This has less of an impact on Swift code, but it is
important to watch out for if you are working with a significant body of Objective-C code. Because it
is a reference type, an instance of NSMutableArray could be changed by any code that has a reference
to it.

Runtime Errors
Despite your best efforts, things will sometimes go wrong while your app is running. In Cocoa, these
errors fall into two categories.
Programmer errors are situations that should never happen, which means that they are the result of,
well, a mistake you made. (We say they should never happen… but we have made plenty of these.)
Examples include not meeting the precondition of a method (the index was not within the array’s
bounds), performing an illegal operation (such as force-casting incorrectly or force-unwrapping a nil),
or sending a message to an Objective-C object that does not understand it.
Swift alerts you to programmer errors by trapping, which results in stopping the program. Cocoa APIs
use Objective-C exceptions. A trap is typically accompanied by a fatal error line in the console,
while exceptions have much longer output showing the full stack. Note that Swift does not presently
support exceptions.
Recoverable errors, on the other hand, are errors that your application can check for, deal with, and
move on from. Examples include being unable to contact a remote server, errors parsing data, or
lacking hardware capabilities.
Recoverable errors will be communicated to your code through the return values of methods (such as
a nil return). For more sophisticated APIs, especially those involving I/O, an NSError object will be
used. You will learn about NSError in Chapter 12.
You can code defensively and check preconditions in your own code using assert() and
fatalError(). For example:

let condition: Bool = ...

assert(condition, "Condition was not met")

fatalError() is useful in methods that are declared to return a value. The Swift compiler requires that
all code paths return a value – unless you call a noreturn function like fatalError():

func openFortuneCookie() -> String {

if let cookie = cookie {
return cookie.fortune
}
else {
fatalError("Must have cookie!")
// No return statement
}
}

58
 More Exploring of Apple’s Swift Documentation

More Exploring of Apple’s Swift Documentation

Your homework for this chapter is to browse through the Classes and Structures, Properties, Methods,
and Initialization sections of Apple's The Swift Programming Language guide. You should also tackle
the challenge exercises given below.

Challenge: Safe Landing

Your investors have pointed out that rockets are expensive and letting them plummet to the ground does
not enhance reusability. Enhance the Rocket class to deploy a parachute in order to slow its descent
once it is descending (i.e., shows negative velocity on the Y axis) and reaches a certain altitude.

Challenge: Vector Angle

Your Vector structure should be able to report its angle in radians. Add a read-only, computed property
to it called angle.
The angle of a vector can be expressed in Swift as:
atan2(y, x)

59
This page intentionally left blank
Index API Reference, 88
App Store (distribution), 507-509
AppDelegate

Symbols about, 115, 116

role, 5
(_:), meaning of, 43
and window controllers, 14, 24-26
.icns file, 212
append(_: ), 34
.lproj files (localization), 379
AppKit (framework), xxi, 71, 276
.tar files, 497
Apple Developer Programs, xviii
.tgz files, 497
application architecture
.xcdatamodeld (Core Data), 221
basic, 14, 26
// MARK:, 105
document-based, 158, 206-210
@IBAction, 20
master/detail, 444
@IBDesignable, 290
with multiple view controllers, 466
@IBInspectable, 289
and MVC, 4-6
@IBOutlet, 18
single-window, 70-77, 101-103
@NSApplicationMain, 116 and view controllers, 439, 440, 444-446
and window controllers, 26, 74-77, 446
A application bundles, 390, 489
accents, typing, 384 applications
acceptsFirstResponder (NSResponder), 307 (see also application architecture, projects)
acceptsMouseMovedEvents (NSWindow), 310 App Store, using, 507-509
access modifiers, 427, 434, 435 build configurations for, 499
actions containers for, 506
(see also connections, controls, NSControl, copy protection for, 507
outlets) custom file extensions for, 212-214
and AnyObject, 81 custom file icons for, 212-214
connecting in Interface Builder, 20 distributing, 504, 507-509
defined, 17 document-based, 158
feature of NSControl, 78 entitlements of, 505
and menu items, 263, 264 and event loop, 116
as messages, 78, 82 exporting, 504
methods for, 19, 81 installers for, 505
nil-targeted, 326-328 launching, 116
and NSApplication, 330 lifecycle methods, 115
setting programmatically, 96 localizing, 379-389
actions (CALayer), 476 locations for data, 215, 216
addChildViewController(_: ) mediated file access, 506
(NSViewController), 454 and multiple threads, 479
addObserver(_:selector:name:object:) packaging, 505
(NSNotificationCenter), 260 printing from, 397-403
addSubview(_:) (NSView), 449 and release builds, 503, 504
alerts, 249-251 sandboxing, 505-507
alpha values (NSColor), 91 storage for, 215, 216
ambiguous layouts (Auto Layout), 374, 375 and system resources, 505
animations, 471-477 unit testing, 423
and timers, 341 ARC (Automatic Reference Counting), 61, 65, 68
AnyObject, 81, 454 (see also memory management)

513
Index

archivedDataWithRootObject(_: ), 211 attributes inspector (Xcode), 11, 83

archiving Auto Layout
about, 203 (see also constraints)
build targets, 503 adding constraints, 365
decoding, 205, 206 ambiguous layouts, 374, 375
and document architecture, 206 vs. autoresizing masks, 375, 376
encoding, 204, 205 clip view warning, 124
loading objects, 211 described, 359
NSCoder, 204-206 intrinsic content size, 370
NSData, 211 and NSBox, 449, 455
NSKeyedArchiver, 211 unsatisfiable constraints, 373, 374
NSKeyedUnarchiver, 211 Visual Format Language, 371-373
preventing infinite loops in, 216, 217 visualizeConstraints(_:), 375
saving objects, 211 with right-to-left languages, 371
vs. Core Data, 237 auto-complete (Xcode), 111
XIB files, 14 automatic document saving, 218
ARepeat (NSEvent), 307 automatic initializers, 41
arrangedObjects (NSArrayController), 161, autoresizing masks, 375, 376
169, 173 availableTypeFromArray(_: )
array controllers (NSPasteboardItem), 325
(see also NSArrayController)
about, 160-164 B
customizing, 237
background threads, 412, 479, 484
filtering with, 177, 178
Base.lproj, 387
immediate fetching, 224
beginCriticalSheet(_: completi…) (NSWindow),
labeling in Interface Builder, 224
345
and model abstractions, 162
beginDraggingSessionWithItems(…) (NSView),
and NSManagedObjectContext, 223
334
sorting with, 171-175
beginSheet(_:completionHandler: )
as target of controls, 164, 165
(NSWindow), 345, 353
arrays
beginSheetModalForWindow(_: comple…)
about, 31-33
(NSAlert), 251
append(_:), 34
bindings
count, 34
array controllers, 160-164
filtering, 177
benefits of, 136
memory management of, 63
with Core Data, 221
and NSArray, 57
creating, 138, 139
reverse(), 34
creating programmatically, 154
subscripting, 32
debugging, 146, 152, 153
and traps, 33
and KVC/KVO, 136, 139, 142
as, 56
and NSObject, 159, 408
assert(), 58
patterns for, 231
assertions (unit testing), 424-427, 434
for table data, 130
assistant editor, 132
and value transformers, 187
associated values (enums), 411
when to use, 145
astrophysics degrees, xxii
bindings inspector (Xcode), 130
attributes (Core Data), 221-224
blocking
attributes (views), 11-13

514
 Index

(see also multithreading) subclasses, 478

CPU-bound, 484 CALayerDelegate, 477
I/O-bound, 484 canvas (Interface Builder), 8
and modal windows, 251, 355 CAOpenGLLayer, 478
boldSystemFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313 capture lists, 252
Bool, 31 caseInsensitiveCompare(_: ), 175
boolean types, 31 CAShapeLayer, 478
boolForKey(_:) (NSUserDefaults), 240 casting, 56-58
bounds (NSView), 276 categories, 318
breakpoint navigator, 151 CATextLayer, 478
breakpoints, 148, 151 CATransaction, 472, 477
bridging, 56-58 cell-based tables, 126
build actions, 500 cells
build configurations and controls, 80
changing app behavior with, 500-503 history in Cocoa, 80, 126
debug, 98, 499 in table views, 126-128
debugging symbols in, 499 CGFloat, 91, 92
finding, 499 CGRect
and Instruments, 481 contains(_:), 300
and preprocessor directives, 500-503 characters (NSEvent), 307
release, 98, 499 checkboxes (NSButton), 97
setting flags in, 500-503 Clang Static Analyzer, 68
specifying, 500 class methods, 121
build targets, 423, 503 classes
bundles (see also individual class names, initializers,
application, 212, 390, 489 methods, objects, properties, types)
described, 390, 391 about, 4
identifiers for, 216, 246 creating new, 6-8
and localization, 380, 391, 392 defining, 45-48
main, 390 extending, 318
and strings files, 391 and inheritance, 49-51
buttons initializing, 46
disabling, 108 making @IBDesignable, 290
in Interface Builder, 10 prefixes for, 162
radio, 97 in product modules, 162
recessed, 143 reference pages for, 88
titles for, 11 vs. structures, 53, 54
clearContents() (NSPasteboard), 324

C clickCount (NSEvent), 298

clip views, 125
CAAnimation, 472
closures, 53, 251-256
CABasicAnimation, 477
Cocoa
CAGradientLayer, 478
API reference, 88
CALayer
classes in, 54, 55, 88
about, 471
documentation, 88
actions, 476
frameworks in, xxi, 71
delegate of, 477
history of, xviii-xx
described, 472
Cocoa Touch (framework), 512

515
Index

CocoaHeads, 512 subview-superview, 360-366

code snippet library, 101 types of, 359
code snippets, 101-103 unsatisfiable, 373, 374
color (NSColorWell), 89 containers (for applications), 506
color wells, 87 containers (view controllers), 445
com.pkware.zip-archive, 490 contains(_:) (CGRect), 300
completion handlers content (NSArrayController), 161
about, 251, 252 Content Array (array controllers), 161, 162
with asynchronous API, 409 content views, 4, 73
implementing, 410-418 contexts (graphics), 278, 284
testing, 435, 436 continuous (NSControl), 82
computed properties controller layer (MVC), 5
about, 51-53 (see also view controllers, window controllers)
and KVC, 145 controllers
storage for, 146 (see also Model-View-Controller)
concludeDragOperation(_: ) controls
(NSDraggingDestination), 337 (see also actions, NSControl)
concurrency, 479-481, 484-487 about, 78, 79
conditionals and action messages, 78, 82
if-else, 105 array controllers as targets, 164, 165
if-let, 36 and cells, 80
switch, 38 creating programmatically, 372
connections (in Interface Builder), 17-22 enabling/disabling, 88
(see also actions, outlets) formatting, 182
with assistant editor, 132 making continuous, 82
to File's Owner, 76 outlets to, 93
connections inspector, 21 and target-action, 78
connections panel, 18 convertPoint(_:fromView: ) (NSView), 301
console convertPoint(_:toView: ) (NSView), 301
exceptions in, 184 copy protection, 507
importance in debugging, 98 copying-and-pasting (implementing), 323-326
LLDB (debugger), 151, 152 Core Animation, 471-478
viewing in playground, 36 Core Data
viewing in project, 82 .xcdatamodeld, 221
constants, 29, 30 attributes, 221-224
constraints (Auto Layout) benefits of, 221, 237
(see also Auto Layout) with bindings, 221
adding in Interface Builder, 360-368 data model inspector, 236
adding programmatically, 377 and data set size, 237
and ambiguous layouts, 374, 375 defining object model, 221-223
animating, 371 entities, 221-224
between siblings, 367, 368 explained, 234
creating in Interface Builder, 359, 364 faulting, 237
creating programmatically, 371 fetch requests, 235
debugging, 373-375 NSManagedObject, 221
for positioning views, 359 NSManagedObjectContext, 223, 235, 237
priorities of, 363 NSManagedObjectModel, 221, 235
size constraints, 368 NSPersistentDocument, 235

516
 Index

pros and cons, 237 stack trace, 148, 149

relationships, 221 variables view, 149
and SQLite, 236, 237 decodeBoolForKey(_: ) (NSCoder), 205
store types, 236 decodeDoubleForKey(_: ) (NSCoder), 205
vs. archiving, 237 decodeFloatForKey(_: ) (NSCoder), 205
Core Graphics (framework), 276, 294 decodeIntForKey(_: ) (NSCoder), 205
count (arrays), 34 decodeObjectForKey(_: ) (NSCoder), 205
createDirectoryAtURL(_: withIntermed…) default: (switch statement), 38
(NSFileManager), 216 defaultCenter() (NSNotificationCenter), 260
currentContextDrawingToScreen() defaults, 239, 240
(NSGraphicsContext), 402 delegate (property), 111-115
cutting-and-pasting (implementing), 323-326 (see also delegate methods, delegation)
exposed as outlet, 131
D setting in Interface Builder, 114, 131
delegate methods
Dalrymple, Mark, 512
(see also delegate, delegation)
Darwin (Unix), xx
and notifications, 115
data model inspector (Core Data), 236
optional, 110, 116
data sources (run loops), 493
required, 110
data sources (table views), 120, 128-131
types of, 113
dataForType(_:) (NSPasteboardItem), 325
using auto-complete for, 111
dataOfType(_:error:) (NSDocument), 208
delegation
dataSource (NSTableView), 120
(see also delegate, delegate methods)
dataSource (property)
about, 110, 111
exposed as outlet, 128
classes using, 115
setting in Interface Builder, 128
errors in implementing, 114
dataWithPDFInsideRect(_: ) (NSView), 318
NSWindowDelegate, 113
date formatters, 181, 416
and protocols, 110
date pickers, 227
steps in implementing, 111
debug builds, 98, 499
vs. subclassing, 109, 110
DEBUG compile-time value, 501
and table views, 120
debug navigator, 148
and web services, 410
debugger bar, 149
dependent keys, 155
debugging
developer programs, xviii
(see also debugging tools, errors, exceptions)
dictionaries
Auto Layout constraints, 373-375
about, 31, 32
bindings, 146, 152, 153
accessing, 36
exceptions, 151
and NSDictionary, 57
hints, 97, 98
subscripting, 36
stack trace, 148
didChangeValueForKey(_: ), 141
stepping through methods, 149, 150
didSet (property observer), 108
symbols, 499
directories
with zombie objects, 98
(see also bundles)
debugging tools
(see also bundles, files)
breakpoints, 148, 151
.lproj, 379
debug navigator, 148
application, 215, 216
debugger, 147-151
as file wrappers, 207
LLDB (debugger) console, 151, 152
localization, 379, 387

517
Index

project source, 386 and graphics contexts, 278, 284

dirty rects, 278, 295 images, 286-290
dismissWithModalResponse(_:), 354 and layers, 471
distributing (applications), 504, 507-509 PDF data, 318
DMG (disk image), 505 and points, 275
dock (Interface Builder), 8 printer vs. screen, 402
Document (template-created class), 158 views, 276-279
document architecture, 206-210 drawInRect(_: ) (NSImage), 288
document controllers, 207 drawInRect(_:fromRect: op…) (NSImage), 290
document outline (Interface Builder), 8, 127 drawInRect(_:withAttributes: ) (NSString),
document-based applications, 158 316
and printing, 397 drawLayer(_:inContext:), 477
and responder chain, 328 drawRect(_: ) (NSView), 277-279
documentation dynamic, 140, 141
for Cocoa classes, 88-91
for protocols, 112 E
for Swift, 39
enabled, 88
documents
encodeBool(_:forKey: ) (NSCoder), 204
(see also document architecture, document
encodeConditionalObject(_:forKey: )
controllers, files, NSDocument)
(NSCoder), 216
automatic saving of, 218
encodeDouble(_:forKey: ) (NSCoder), 204
extensions for, 212-214
encodeFloat(_:forKey: ) (NSCoder), 204
icons for, 212-214
encodeInt(_:forKey: ) (NSCoder), 204
loading, 209
encodeObject(_:forKey: ) (NSCoder), 204
and loading NIB files, 209
encodeWithCoder(_:) (NSCoding), 204, 205
printing from, 397-403
endSheet(_:returnCode: ) (NSWindow), 345, 354
saving, 207
entities (Core Data), 221-224
DOM parsing, 420
entitlements (application), 505
Double, 31
enumerate(), 37
doubleValue, 78
enums (enumerations)
drag-and-drop, 333-339
with associated values, 411
draggingEntered(_:)
defined, 38
(NSDraggingDestination), 337, 339
instance methods in, 43
draggingExited(_:) (NSDraggingDestination),
nested, 411
337
and raw values, 39
draggingSession(_:endedAtPoint: operati…)
and switch statements, 38
(NSDraggingSource), 336
errors
draggingSession(_:sourceOperationM…), 334
(see also debugging, exceptions, NSError)
draggingUpdated(_:)
Auto Layout, 374, 375
(NSDraggingDestination), 337
auto-saving, 199
drawAtPoint(_:) (NSAttributedString), 316
with bindings, 146, 147
drawAtPoint(_:withAttributes: ) (NSString),
and completion handlers, 410
316
and enums, 411
drawFocusRingMask() (NSView), 309
in event-handling, 184
drawing
exceptions, 58
(see also animations, views)
HTTP codes, 413, 414
and dirty rects, 278, 295
in delegation, 114
frameworks for, 294

518
 Index

in playgrounds, 30 flagsChanged(_: ) (NSResponder), 307

with KVC, 183 flipped views, 295
runtime, 58 Float, 31
traps, 33, 58 floatForKey(_:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
with untyped data, 419 floating-point types, 31, 33, 424
XCTFail(), 434 floatValue, 78
event loop, 116 focus rings, 309
events fonts, 313, 314, 320
(see also mouse events) for-in, 37
errors in handling, 184 forced unwrapping (of optionals), 35
in event loop, 116 formatter (NSControl), 182
keyboard, 305-310 formatters
mouse (see mouse events) about, 181-183
exception breakpoints, 151 and controls, 182
exceptions, 58, 151 date, 181
(see also errors) interaction with locale, 183
expressions number, 167, 169, 182
evaluating with LLDB, 151 vs. KVC validation, 183
and string interpolation, 37 writing custom, 183
extensions (of a class), 318 forwardInvocation(_: ) (NSInvocation), 189
Foundation (framework), xxi, 56, 159
F frame (NSView), 274-276
frameworks
factory defaults, 239
AppKit, xxi, 71
fallthrough (switch statement), 38
Cocoa, xxi, 71
fatalError(), 58
Cocoa Touch, 512
faulting (Core Data), 237
Core Data, 221, 235, 237
fetch requests (Core Data), 235
Core Graphics, 276, 294
file handles, 492, 493, 496
defined, xxi
file wrappers, 207
documentation for, 88
File's Owner, 76
for drawing, 294
files
Foundation, xxi, 56, 159
(see also directories, documents)
importing, 71, 159
copying, 462
Quartz, 294
custom extensions for, 212-214
shipped with OS X, xxi
custom icons for, 212-214
XCTest, 424, 425
formats for pasting, 323
func, 43
in project, 3
functional programming, 256
loading, 209
functions
saving, 207
(see also closures, initializers, methods)
fileWrapperOfType(_:error: ) (NSDocument),
for functional programming, 256
208
as types, 53
fill() (NSBezierPath), 277
filter(), 177, 256
filtering (array controllers), 177, 178 G
find(), 134 generalPasteboard() (NSPasteboard), 324
first responder, 305-308, 328 genstrings (localization), 385, 387, 389
(see also NSResponder, responder chain) gesture recognizers, 301, 302

519
Index

Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) (multithreading), data model, 236

486 identity, 76
graphics contexts, 278, 284 installers (application), 505
drawing to screen, 402 instances, 33
graphics states, 278, 284 Instruments, xxii, 481-484
groups (project files), 3 Int, 31
integer types, 31
H integerForKey(_:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
integerValue, 78
Hashable, 31
Interface Builder
helper objects, 110
adding menu items, 319
hierarchies, view, 5
adding views in, 9-13
hit testing/detection, 300, 303
assistant editor, 132
HTTP, 405
connecting dataSource in, 128
HTTP status codes, 413, 414
connecting delegate in, 114
connecting objects in, 17-22, 76
I connections panel, 18
.icns file, 212 copying and pasting in, 85, 86
identity inspector, 76 creating bindings in, 138, 139
if-else, 105 designing custom classes in, 290
if-let, 36 File's Owner, 76
image wells, 227, 228 inspecting custom properties in, 289
images, 286-290 navigating, 8
implicit animation, 476 overview, xxii
implicitly unwrapped optionals, 95 placeholders, 76
importing frameworks, 71, 159 view hierarchy popover, 178-180
importing modules, 427 internal (access modifier), 427, 434
Info.plist, 207 interpretKeyEvents(_: ) (NSResponder), 308
init (keyword), 42 intrinsicContentSize, 286
init(coder:) (NSCoding), 204-206 invalidate() (NSTimer), 342
init(…) (see initializers) isEmpty (strings), 34
initialFirstResponder (NSWindow), 265, 310
initializers
about, 33
J
Jobs, Steve, xviii
automatic, 41
JSON parsing, 414
chaining, 42
jump bar (Xcode), 105
for classes, 45-47
designated, 46, 206
inheriting, 50, 206 K
parameters, 42 key paths, 153, 154
and properties, 42 key view loop, 310
for standard types, 33, 34 key windows, 305, 306, 327
for structures, 41, 42 key-value coding (see KVC)
writing, 41 key-value observing (see KVO)
inspectors key-value pairs
attributes, 11 (see also KVC, KVO)
bindings, 130 in dictionaries, 31
connection, 21 in strings files (localization), 390

520
 Index

key-value validation, 181, 183-186 creating, 473

keyboard events, 305-310 drawing, 471
keyCode (NSEvent), 307 lazy copying (pasteboard), 330, 331
keyDown(_:) (NSResponder), 307 length (NSRange), 314
keyPathsForValuesAffectingFullName(), 155 let, 29, 30
keys level indicators, 227, 228
(see also KVC, KVO) libraries
dependent, 155 code snippet, 101
in dictionaries, 31 object, 9, 10
in key-value coding, 135 lineToPoint() (NSBezierPath), 278
making observable, 140 literal values, 32, 33
observing, 139 in testing, 428
keyUp(_:) (NSResponder), 307 LLDB (debugger), xxi, 151, 152
Knight Rider, 109 (see also debugging)
knowsPageRange(_: ) (NSView), 398 loading documents, 209
KVC (key-value coding) loading NIB files, 75-77
(see also key-value validation, KVO) loading objects, 211
about, 135 loadView() (NSViewController), 440, 465
and proxy objects, 193 Localizable.strings, 385, 387, 388
and to-many relationships, 192 localization
and bindings, 136 adding localizations to projects, 381
and computed properties, 145 and NSBundle, 391, 392
empty string exceptions, 183 base directory, 387
in undo, 192 described, 379
method naming conventions, 193 directories, 387
methods, 135, 146 and formatters, 183
and nil, 146, 183-186 genstrings, 387
and predicates, 177 global resources, 392
and property accessors, 145 images, 379
and type safety, 142 language-specific resources, 392
validate(_:error: ), 185 and NIB files, 380
validation for, 183-186 NSLocalizedString, 385-390
KVO (key-value observing) of XIB files, 380, 382-385
about, 139 and plurals, 393, 394
and bindings, 139, 142 region-specific resources, 392
compliance, 140 replacing string literals, 385
dependent keys, 155 of resources (non-XIB), 379
in undo, 195 and strings files, 379, 380, 382-390
methods, 141 token ordering in strings, 390
and Swift, 140 ways to achieve, 379, 380
location (NSRange), 314

L locationInWindow (NSEvent), 297, 300

loops
labelFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313
event, 116
labels, 80
examining in Value History, 37
layer (NSView), 473
for, 37
layers
for-in, 37
animating, 476
run, 343

521
Index

in Swift, 36 action, 78
.lprojfiles (localization), 379 explained, 55, 56
and NSInvocation, 189
M methods
(see also individual method names, initializers,
Mac App Store (distribution), 507-509
messages, properties)
Mac Developer Program, xviii
(_: ), meaning of, 43
main bundle, 390
about, 43
main thread, 479
action, 81
managed object model (Core Data), 221
application lifecycle, 115
managedObjectContext (NSArrayController),
class, 121
223
in classes, 46
map(), 256
data source, 121, 129
// MARK:, 105
defined, 27, 34
master/detail interfaces, 444
delegate, 268
maxValue (NSSlider), 83
in enums, 43
mediated file access, 506
in extensions, 318
memory management
KVC, 135
and arrays, 63
KVO, 141
in closures, 252, 253
naming conventions, 43
and delegate, 112
optional, 110, 116
and Instruments, 483
parameters, 43
manual reference counting, 68
in protocols, 110
need for, 61
required, 110
and notifications, 267
spelling errors in, 114
of windows, 444
static, 27
for reference types, 61
stepping through, 149, 150
reference counting, 61-65
in structures, 43
strong reference cycles, 65-67
minValue (NSSlider), 83
strong references, 65
modal alerts, 249, 250
and timers, 343
modal windows, 355
unowned references, 67
model key path, 139
for value types, 61
model layer (MVC), 5
weak references, 65, 67
binding to array controller, 163, 164
and zombie objects, 98
encapsulating in web services, 409
menu items
and table views, 120
creating in Interface Builder, 319
Model-View-Controller (MVC)
disabling, 329
(see also application architecture, controller
hooking up, 263, 264
layer, model layer, view layer)
and keyboard events, 310
defined, 4-6
and NSDocument, 207, 209
and web services, 407, 409
and NSDocumentController, 207
modifierFlags (NSEvent), 297, 307
state, 329
modules, 427
targets of, 326-328
modules (product), 162
validating, 329
mouse events
messageFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313
(see also events, first responder, NSEvent)
messages
checking click count, 298
(see also methods)
double-clicks, 298

522
 Index

gesture recognizers, 301, 302 nil-targeted actions, 326-328

handler methods, 297 notifications
hit testing, 300 about, 259
mouseDragged(_: ), 335 adding observers for, 260
rollovers, 310, 311 constants for, 265
mouseDragged(_:) (NSResponder), 335 in delegate methods, 115, 268
mouseEntered(_:) (NSResponder), 310 and memory management, 267
mouseExited(_:) (NSResponder), 310 observing, 259-261
mouseMoved(_:) (NSResponder), 310 posting, 260, 261, 266
moveToPoint() (NSBezierPath), 278 registering for, 260, 266
multithreading removing observers of, 260, 267
background threads, 412, 479, 484 responding to, 267
complexities in using, 479 unregistering for, 260, 267
considerations with mutable Array, 486 and web services, 410
Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), 486 NS prefix, 5
main thread, 479 NSAlert, 249-251
mutex, 486 NSApplication
NSOperationQueue, 484, 485 (see also AppDelegate, applications)
NSRecursiveLock, 486 about, 115, 116
operation queues, 412 in responder chain, 327
race conditions, 480, 481 sendAction(_:to:from: ), 330
thread synchronization, 485, 486 NSApplicationDelegate, 115
threads, 479 @NSApplicationMain, 116
and web services, 409 NSArray, 57
mutability, 53 (see also arrays)
mutex (multithreading), 486 NSArrayController
MVC (see Model-View-Controller) (see also array controllers)
arrangedObjects, 161, 169, 173

N content, 161
managedObjectContext, 223
navigators (Xcode)
selectionIndexes, 161, 169
about, 3
subclassing for custom objects, 237
breakpoint, 151
NSAttributedString, 314-317
debug, 148
(see also NSString, strings)
project, 3
NSBezierPath, 276
needsDisplay (NSView), 278
NSBox, 449, 452, 455
nested types, 411
NSBundle, 390-393
nextKeyView (NSView), 310
NSButton, 10
nextResponder (NSResponder), 327
(see also buttons)
NeXTSTEP, xviii-xx, 5
NSCell, 80
NIB files
NSClipView, 125
(see also XIB files)
NSCoder, 204-206
defined, 14
NSCoding (protocol), 204-206
loading, 75-77
NSColor, 90, 91, 95
and loading documents, 209
NSColorWell, 89
and localization, 380
NSComparisonResult, 176
names of, 24-26
NSControl
naming conventions for, 72
(see also controls)

523
Index

action, 78 NSFileManager, 215

continuous, 82 NSFont, 313, 314
enabled, 88 NSFontAttributeName (NSAttributedString),
formatter, 182 315
inheritance hierarchy of, 78 NSFontManager, 320
setting target/action programmatically, 96 NSForegroundColorAttributeName
target, 78, 82 (NSAttributedString), 315
value properties, 78 NSFormatter, 183
NSData, 208, 209, 211 NSGradient, 295, 338
NSDateFormatter, 181 NSGraphicsContext, 284, 402
NSDatePicker, 227 NSImage
NSDictionary, 57 drawing on, 335
(see also dictionaries) drawInRect(_: ), 288
NSDistributedNotificationCenter, 259 drawInRect(_:fromRect: op…), 290
NSDocument NSImageView, 227, 228
(see also documents, NSDocumentController) NSInvocation, 189
about, 158, 207-209 NSKeyedArchiver, 204, 211
and archiving, 206 NSKeyedUnarchiver, 211
dataOfType(_:error:), 208 NSLevelIndicator, 227, 228
fileWrapperOfType(_:error: ), 208 NSLocalizedString (localization), 385-390
NSDocumentChangeType, 218 NSMakeRange(), 314
printOperationWithSettings(_:error: ), NSManagedObject (Core Data), 221
397, 401 NSManagedObjectContext (Core Data), 221, 223,
readFromData(_:ofType:error: ), 209 235, 237
readFromFileWrapper(_:ofType:error: ), NSManagedObjectModel (Core Data), 221, 235
209 NSMatrix, 97
readFromURL(_:ofType:error: ), 209 NSMenuItem (see menu items)
in responder chain, 327 NSMutableAttributedString, 314
updateChangeCount(_: ), 218 NSMutableURLRequest, 406
windowControllerDidLoadNib(_: ), 209 NSNotification, 259
writeToURL(_:ofType:error: ), 208 (see also notifications)
NSDocumentController, 207 NSNotificationCenter
(see also NSDocument) about, 259
in responder chain, 327 commonly-used methods, 260
NSDraggingDestination (protocol), 337 and memory management, 267
NSDraggingInfo (protocol), 337 NSNumber, 56
NSDraggingItem, 335 NSNumberFormatter, 181, 182
NSDraggingSource (protocol), 334 NSObject
NSDragOperation, 333 base Cocoa class, 54
NSError, 208, 209 required for bindings, 408
(see also errors) NSOperationQueue (multithreading), 412, 484,
NSErrorPointer, 208, 209 485
NSEvent NSParagraphStyleAttributeName
(see also events) (NSAttributedString), 315
and keyboard events, 307 NSPasteboard, 323-325, 330, 331
and mouse events, 297 NSPasteboardItem, 324, 325, 330, 331
NSFetchRequest, 235 NSPasteboardReading (protocol), 324
NSFileHandle, 492, 493, 496 NSPasteboardWriting (protocol), 324

524
 Index

NSPersistentDocument (Core Data), 221, 235 sortDescriptors, 173

NSPipe, 489, 492, 496, 497 NSTableViewDataSource
NSPoint, 274 implementing, 128-131
NSPredicate, 177, 235 numberOfRowsInTableView(_: ), 121, 129
NSPrintInfo, 403 tableView(_: objectValueForTa…), 121, 129
NSPrintOperation, 397 NSTableViewDelegate, 131-133
NSRange, 314 NSTabView, 445
NSRect, 274 NSTabViewController, 445, 446, 449-455
NSRecursiveLock (multithreading), 486 NSTask, 489, 491, 496
NSResponder NSTextField (see text fields)
about, 78 NSTextFieldCell, 80
first responder methods, 307, 308 NSTimer, 341-343
mouse event handler methods, 297, 298 NSUnderlineColorAttributeName
mouseDragged(_: ), 335 (NSAttributedString), 315
nextResponder, 327 NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName
responder chain, 327, 328 (NSAttributedString), 315
NSRunLoop, 343 NSUndoManager, 191, 192, 201
NSSavePanel, 319 NSURL, 406
NSScroller, 125 NSURLRequest, 406
NSScrollView, 291 NSURLSession, 406, 413, 414
NSShadow, 284 NSURLSessionDataTask, 409
NSShadowAttributeName (NSAttributedString), NSURLSessionTask, 406, 409
315 NSUserDefaults, 239, 240
NSSlider, 79, 83 NSValueTransformer, 187
NSSliderCell, 80 NSView
NSSortDescriptor, 171-176 (see also NSViewController, views)
NSSpeechSynthesizer addSubview(_: ), 449
implementing, 106, 107 beginDraggingSessionWithItems(…), 334
voices available for, 121 bounds, 276
NSSpeechSynthesizerDelegate (protocol), 110 convertPoint(_:fromView: ), 301
NSSplitView, 445 convertPoint(_:toView: ), 301
NSSplitViewController, 444, 445 custom subclasses of, 271, 273-279
NSStackView, 453 dataWithPDFInsideRect(_: ), 318
NSString drawFocusRingMask(), 309
(see also NSAttributedString, strings) drawRect(_: ), 277-279
drawAtPoint(_:withAttributes: ), 316 flipped, 295
drawInRect(_:withAttributes: ), 316 frame, 274-276
sizeWithAttributes(_: ), 316 intrinsicContentSize, 286
and String, 56 knowsPageRange(_: ), 398
NSSuperscriptAttributeName layer, 473
(NSAttributedString), 315 needsDisplay, 278
NSTableColumn, 125 nextKeyView, 310
NSTableHeaderView, 125 _NSViewBackingLayer, 478
NSTableView rectForPage(_: ), 398
(see also NSTableViewDataSource, registerForDraggedTypes(_: ), 337, 338
NSTableViewDelegate, table views) removeFromSuperview(), 449
dataSource, 120 setNeedsDisplayInRect(_: ), 295
reloadData(), 134 viewDidMoveToWindow(), 310

525
Index

wantsLayer, 473 reference types, 54

_NSViewBackingLayer, 478 and Swift, 55
NSViewController objects
(see also NSView, view controllers) (see also classes, methods, properties)
about, 440 about, 4
loadView(), 440, 465 and memory management, 61-65
nibName, 442 objectValue (NSControl)
in responder chain, 327 about, 78
view, 440 binding to, 130
viewLoaded, 451 formatting, 182
NSWindow and table data, 127
(see also NSWindowController, observers (notifications), 259-261
NSWindowDelegate, windows) observers (property), 108
beginCriticalSheet(_: completi…), 345 OpenStep, xix
beginSheet(_:completionHandler: ), 345, operation masks (drag-and-drop), 339
353 operation queues, 412, 484, 485
endSheet(_:returnCode: ), 345, 354 operators, overloading, 44
firstResponder, 305-308 optional (protocol methods), 110, 116
initialFirstResponder, 310 optional binding, 36
sheet methods, 345 optional chaining, 117
sheetParent, 354 optionals
visualizeConstraints(_:), 375 about, 34
NSWindowController as?, 57
(see also NSWindow, window controllers) and casting, 57
and NSDocument, 210 chaining, 117
in responder chain, 327 and dictionary subscripting, 36
window, 75-77 forced unwrapping of, 35
windowDidLoad(), 93, 94 if-let, 36
windowNibName, 24, 25, 75 implicitly unwrapped, 95
NSWindowDelegate (protocol), 112, 113 and optional binding, 36
NSWorkspace, 418 syntax for, 34
NSXMLDocument, 420 unwrapping, 35
NSXMLNode, 420 origin (NSRect), 274
number formatters, 167, 169, 182 OS X
numberOfRowsInTableView(_: ), 121, 129 (see also Cocoa)
frameworks for, xxi
O history of, xix
as Unix-based, xx
object library (Xcode), 9, 10
outlets
object-oriented programming, 4
(see also properties)
objectForKey(_:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
assistant editor, connecting with, 132
Objective-C
connecting in Interface Builder, 18, 19, 132
(see also Cocoa, KVC, KVO)
creating in code, 17
about, xx
dataSource, 128
and bindings, 408
defined, 17
dynamic, 140-142
delegate, 114, 131
in documentation, 91
as implicitly unwrapped optionals, 95
messages, 55, 56, 189
as weak references, 67

526
 Index

when to use, 93 copying files into, 462

overloading operators, 44 creating, 1-3
source directories of, 386
P targets in, 423
properties
packaging (applications), 505
(see also methods, outlets)
pagination (printing multiple pages), 397
in attributes inspector, 83
parameter names, 43
computed, 51-53, 146
pasteboards, 323-325, 330, 331
default values, 46
pasting (implementing) (see pasteboards)
defined, 34
PDFs, generating, 318
didSet, 108
performance issues, 482, 484
and extensions, 318
performDragOperation(_: )
initializing, 42, 46
(NSDraggingDestination), 337
making @IBInspectable, 289
persistence (see archiving, Core Data)
shadowing, 17
pipes, 492, 496, 497
stored, 52
placeholder text, 105
willSet, 108
placeholders, 76
property observers, 108
playgrounds (Xcode), 28-30
propertyListForType(_: ) (NSPasteboardItem),
errors in, 30
325
Value History, 37
protocols
viewing console in, 36
CALayerDelegate, 477
pointers, 53
conforming to, 110, 111
points (in drawing), 275
creating, 217, 454
postNotification(_:)
defining roles with, 110
(NSNotificationCenter), 260
documentation for, 112
postNotificationName(_:object: )
header files for, 114
(NSNotificationCenter), 260
NSApplicationDelegate, 115
Powerbox, 506
NSCoding, 204-206
predicates, 177, 235
NSDraggingDestination, 337
preferences (user), 239, 240
NSDraggingInfo, 337
prepareForDragOperation(_: )
NSDraggingSource, 334
(NSDraggingDestination), 337
NSPasteboardReading, 324
preprocessor directives, 500-503
NSPasteboardWriting, 324
pressure (NSEvent), 298
NSSpeechSynthesizerDelegate, 110
Printable (protocol), 54
NSTableViewDataSource, 128-131
printing, 397-403
NSTableViewDelegate, 131-133
printOperationWithSettings(_:error: )
NSWindowDelegate, 113
(NSDocument), 397, 401
optional methods in, 110, 116
private (access modifier), 434
Printable, 54
product modules, 162
reference pages for, 112
programmer errors, 58
required methods in, 110
programming
public (access modifier), 428, 434
functional, 256
object-oriented, 4
project navigator, 3 Q
projects Quartz (framework), 294
(see also applications) Quick Help (Xcode), 30

527
Index

R reverse(), 34
RoboCop, 109
race conditions (multithreading), 480, 481
run loops, 343, 493
radio buttons (NSButton), 97
runModal() (NSAlert), 250
Range, 37
runModalForWindow(_: ) (NSApplication), 355
rawValue (enums), 39
runtime errors, 58
readFromData(_:ofType:error: ) (NSDocument),
209
readFromFileWrapper(_:ofType:error: ) S
(NSDocument), 209 sandboxing (applications), 505-507
readFromURL(_:ofType:error: ), 491 saveGraphicsState() (NSGraphicsContext),
readFromURL(_:ofType:error: ) (NSDocument), 284
209 saving documents, 207, 218
readObjects(_:options:) (NSPasteboard), 324 saving objects, 211
receipt validation, 507-509 SAX parsing, 421
receivers, 55 scenes (storyboards), 457, 463, 470
recoverable errors, 58 scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval (NSTimer),
rectForPage(_:) (NSView), 398 342
redo stack, 190 Scheme Editor, 500, 502, 503
reduce(), 256 scroll views, 125, 291
reference counting, 61-65, 68 scrollers, 125
reference types, 53, 54 Sculley, John, xviii
references, strong, 65 segues (storyboards), 457, 459
references, unowned, 67 selectionIndexes (NSArrayController), 161,
references, weak, 65 169
registerDefaults(_:) (NSUserDefaults), 240 selectors, 55
registerForDraggedTypes(_: ), 337 selectTab(_: ), 451
registerForDraggedTypes(_: ) (NSView), 337, selectTabAtIndex(_: ), 451
338 self
relationships (Core Data), 221 in closures, 252
release builds, 98, 499, 503, 504 in initializers, 42
reloadData() (NSTableView), 134 in instance methods, 44
removeFromSuperview() (NSView), 449 and property names, 17
removeObjectForKey(_:) (NSUserDefaults), sendAction(_:to:from: ) (NSApplication), 330
240 sender (action methods), 81
removeObserver(_:) (NSNotificationCenter), setBool(_:forKey:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
260 setData(_:forType: ) (NSPasteboardItem), 325
representedObject, 454 setFloat(_:forKey:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
resignFirstResponder() (NSResponder), 307 setInteger(_:forKey:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
resources setNeedsDisplayInRect(_: ) (NSView), 295
(see also bundles) setNilValueForKey(_: ), 146
application access to, 505 setObject(_:forKey:) (NSUserDefaults), 240
for future learning, 511, 512 setPropertyList(_:forType: )
in bundles, 390, 391 (NSPasteboardItem), 325
localizing, 379 sets, 32, 33
responder chain, 327, 328 setString(_:forType: ) (NSPasteboardItem),
restoreGraphicsState() (NSGraphicsContext), 325
284 setUp(), 424, 429

528
 Index

setValue(_:forKey: ), 135 isEmpty, 34

shadowing (properties), 17 literal, 32
shadows, drawing, 284 NSAttributedString, 314-317
Shared User Defaults Controller, 139 and NSString, 56
sharedDocumentController() strings files (localization), 379, 380, 382-391
(NSDocumentController), 207 strings tables (localization), 385
sheetParent (NSWindow), 354 stringValue, 78
sheets stroke() (NSBezierPath), 277, 278
and alerts, 251 strong reference cycles, 65-67
vs. modal window, 355 strong references, 65
presenting, 353-355 structures, 41-44
Visible At Launch, 349 vs. classes, 53, 54
size (NSAttributedString), 316 struts (autoresizing), 375
size (NSRect), 274 subclassing
sizeWithAttributes(_: ) (NSString), 316 vs. extensions, 318
sliders vs. helper objects, 110
about, 79 subscripting
setting range of, 83 arrays, 32
snippets (code), 101-103 dictionaries, 36
sort descriptors, 171-176, 235 subviews (NSView), 63
sortDescriptors (NSTableView), 173 Swift, 28
sorting (array controllers), 171-175 about, xx, 27
sorting (table views), 176 documentation for, 39
speech synthesis, implementing, 106, 107 and Objective-C, 55
split view controllers, 459 switch, 38
springs (autoresizing), 375 switch statements, 38
SQLite, 236, 237 systemFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313
stack (memory), 149
stack trace, 148, 149 T
stacks, undo and redo, 190
tab images, 454
standardUserDefaults() (NSUserDefaults),
tab view controllers, 445, 446, 449-455
240
table cell views
states, graphics, 278, 284
about, 127, 128
static methods, 27
with checkbox, 226
stopModalWithCode(_: ) (NSApplication), 355
different views in, 225-227
storage, application, 215, 216
with formatters, 226
store types (Core Data), 236
with images, 225
storyboards
table columns, 125
about, 457
table header views, 125
loading, 470
table view
scenes, 457, 463, 470
delegate’s role, 120
segues, 457, 459
table view cells, 127
string interpolation, 37
table views
stringForType(_: ) (NSPasteboardItem), 325
(see also NSTableView,
strings
NSTableViewDataSource,
(see also NSAttributedString, NSString)
NSTableViewDelegate)
initializers for, 33
about, 119-121
interpolation, 37

529
Index

Apple’s guide to, 134 and placeholder text, 105

binding to array controllers, 160-164 selectable, 12
bindings, data supplied from, 129 styles of, 80
cell-based, 126 .tgz fies, 497
cells in, 126-128 thread synchronization (multithreading), 485, 486
and clip views, 125 threads (see multithreading)
as collections of classes, 124 Time Profiler (Instruments), 481-484
columns in, 125 timers, 341-343
and data sources, 120, 128-131 timestamp (NSEvent), 298
data source methods vs. bindings, 129, 134 titleBarFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313
delegate for, 131-133 toll-free bridging, 56
displaying data with bindings, 130 toolTipsFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313
header views, 125 top-level objects, 444
in Interface Builder, 123-128 trailing closure syntax, 256
and scroll views, 125 traps, 33
and scrollers, 125 tuples, 37
Selection Indexes, 161 type inference, 30
sorting in, 171-176 type safety, 142
view-based, 126 types
tableView(_:objectValueForTa…), 121, 129 (see also classes, enumerations, structures,
tableViewSelectionDidChange(_: ), 133 UTIs)
Taligent, 69 boolean, 31
.tar files, 497 bridging, 56-58
target (NSControl) casting, 56-58
setting programmatically, 96 floating-point, 31, 33
target-action (NSControl), 78, 418 hashable, 31
targets inference of, 30
(see also actions, controls) instances of, 33
about, 78 integer, 31
array controllers as, 164, 165 nested, 411
nil, 326-328 reference, 53, 54
project, 503 sets, 32, 33
as weak references, 82 specifying, 30
targets (in projects), 423 tuples, 37
tearDown(), 424, 429 values, 53, 54
test fixtures, 431 types (NSPasteboardItem), 325
testExample(), 424
testing (see unit testing) U
testPerformanceExample(), 424
unarchiveObjectWithData(_: ), 212
text fields
unarchiving (NIB files), 14, 75-77
alignment of, 12
undo
as table view cells, 127
about, 189-192
behavior, setting, 12
implementing, 197-202
cut, copy, and paste, 24
undo stack, 190
editable, 12
Unicode warning for Localizable.strings, 388
changing fonts, 12
unit testing
in Interface Builder, 9
about, 423
as labels, 80

530
 Index

assertions, 424-427 architecture, 466

asynchronous tasks, 435, 436 benefits of using, 440, 444
planning for, 431 container, 445
refactoring for, 431-434 instantiating in storyboards, 470
test fixtures, 431 loading views, 451
using constants in, 428-431 making reusable, 465
Unix, xix and memory management, 444
unowned references, 67 and NIB files, 442
updateChangeCount(_: ) (NSDocument), 218 pre-OSX 10.0, 447
URLForResource(_:withExtension: ) reason for, 439, 440
(NSBundle), 391 split, 459
URLsForDirectory(_:inDomains: ) and swapping views, 449-455
(NSFileManager), 215 tab, 445, 446, 449-455
user defaults, 239, 240 views of, 440, 465
user interfaces ways to connect multiple, 466
(see also Interface Builder, views) when to use, 446
with bindings, 136, 145 vs. window controllers, 444, 446
creating in Interface Builder, 8-13 view hierarchies, 5, 10
master/detail, 444 and responder chain, 327
as view layer in MVC, 4 view hierarchy popover, 178-180
user preferences, 239, 240 view layer (MVC), 4, 5
userFixedPitchFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313 (see also views)
userFontOfSize(_: ) (NSFont), 313 view swapping, 449-455
utilities (Xcode), 3 view-based tables, 126
UTIs (universal type identifiers) viewDidMoveToWindow() (NSView), 310
about, 218 viewLoaded (NSViewController), 451
exported, 215 views
and pasteboards, 324, 325, 330 (see also NSView, view controllers)
adding in Interface Builder, 9-13
V archiving, 14
attributes, configuring, 11-13
validate(_:error: ), 185
binding to array controller, 162
validateMenuItem(_: ) (NSMenuValidation),
connecting in Interface Builder, 17-22, 132
329
content views, 73
validation
copying and pasting, 85, 86
key-value, 181, 183-186
creating custom, 273-279
value transformers, 187
creating programmatically, 293, 294
value transformers, 187
described, 271
value types, 53, 54
drawing, 276-279
valueForKey(_:), 135
and first-responder status, 305-308
var, 29
flipped, 295
variables, 29
and focus rings, 309
capturing in closures, 252
hierarchies of, 5, 10
variables view, 49, 149
in MVC, 4, 5
view (NSViewController), 440
and key view loop, 310
view controllers, 459
in NIB files, 14
(see also NSViewController, views)
positioning, 274-276
about, 439-441
unarchiving, 14, 75-77

531
Index

WKWebView, 465 described, 271

in XIB files, 14 disabling resizing of, 125
Visible At Launch, 73, 76, 349 first responders of, 305-308
Visual Format Language (Auto Layout), 371-373 key, 305, 306
visualizeConstraints(_:) (NSWindow), 375 loading, 75-77
modal, 355
W resizing, 125
showing, 75
wantsLayer (NSView), 473
and view hierarchies, 5, 10
weak, 65
Visible At Launch, 73, 76, 349
weak references, 65, 67
and window controllers, 75-77
web services
windowShouldClose(_: ) (NSWindowDelegate),
about, 405, 406
113
and asynchronous tasks, 409-413
WKWebView, 465
and completion handlers, 409
writeObjects(_:) (NSPasteboard), 324
and completion handlers, 410-418
writeToURL(_:ofType:error: ) (NSDocument),
and HTTP, 405
208
making requests, 406, 410
reusing classes with, 409
synchronous API, 409 X
testing asynchronous tasks, 435, 436 .xcdatamodeld (Core Data), 221
and threads, 409 Xcode
ways to fetch asynchronously, 410 (see also debugging tools, Interface Builder)
willChangeValueForKey(_: ), 141 adding localizations in, 381
willSet (property observer), 108 assistant editor, 132
window (NSEvent), 298 attributes inspector, 11
window (NSWindowController), 75-77 auto-complete, 111
window controllers Cocoa documentation in, 88
(see also NSWindowController, windows) code snippets in, 101-103
and AppDelegate, 14, 24-26 connections inspector, 21
and documents, 210 creating classes in, 6-8
initializing, 17 creating projects in, 1-3
instantiating in storyboards, 470 data model inspector, 236
loading NIB files, 75-77 debugger, 147-151
loading windows, 75-77 files in, 3
and NIB names, 24-26 groups, 3
vs. view controllers, 444, 446 identity inspector, 76
when to use, 446 Instruments, 481-484
and windows, 75-77 jump bar, 105
window servers, xix modules, 427
windowControllerDidLoadNib(_: ) navigator area, 3
(NSDocument), 209 navigators, 3
windowDidLoad(), 93, 94 overview, xxi
windowNibName, 25 playgrounds, 28-30
windowNibName (NSWindowController), 24, 75 project navigator, 3
windows project source directories, 386
(see also NSWindow, window controllers) project window, 3
and content views, 4 Quick Help, 30

532
 Index

saving files in, 14

testing in, 423
Time Profiler, 481-484
using // MARK:, 105
utilities area, 3
variables view, 49, 149
XCTAssert(expr), 424
XCTAssertEqual(expr), 424
XCTAssertEqualWithAccuracy(expr), 424
XCTAssertFalse(expr), 424
XCTAssertNotEqual(expr), 424
XCTAssertNotEqualWithAccuracy(expr), 424
XCTAssertNotNil(expr), 424
XCTAssertTrue(expr), 424
XCTest (framework), 424, 425
XCTestCase
setUp(), 424, 429
tearDown(), 424, 429
testExample(), 424
testPerformanceExample(), 424
XCTFail(), 424, 434
XIB files
(see also NIB files)
archiving files in, 14
connections in, 17, 76
defined, 14
File's Owner, 76
localizing, 380, 382-385
naming conventions for, 72
and NIB files, 14
placeholders, 76
pronounced as “zib”, 8
XML parsing, 420, 421

Z
zip files
for distribution, 505
inspecting, 489
zipinfo utility, 489
zombie objects, 98

533