Question

I have a function in which I hope to return different type

-(UIButton *)returnObject1 ;
{

    //dosomething

    return aUIButton;

}

-(UIView *)returnObject2 ;
{

    //dosomething

    return aUIView;
}

I hope to merge the two function to one and return different NSObject(UIButton,UIView)
Is it possible?

Welcome any comment

Answer 1

Just don’t declare a return type. Change it to this instead:

- (id)returnObject
{
  if (something) {
    return aUIButton;
  }

  return aUIView;
}

However… UIButton is a subclass of UIView, which means you can do this instead:

- (UIView *)returnObject
{
  if (something) {
    return aUIButton;
  }

  return aUIView;
}

Note that, in objective-c, the return type of a method is completely irrelevant while the code is being executed. The entire purpose is to inform the compiler what your code expects, so that it can avoid crashes. So, specifying a return type is a good idea when possible, but is not necessary.