Question

I need your help. I have some problems with NSInvocation ‘getReturnValue:’ method. I want to create UIButton programmatically, and even more, I want to create it dynamically using NSInvocation and through passing value through the NSArray (that’s why I wrapped UIButtonTypeRoundedRect).

Listing.

NSLog(@"Button 4 pushed\n");//this code executed when button pushed
Class cls = NSClassFromString(@"UIButton");//if exists {define class},else cls=nil
SEL msel = @selector(buttonWithType:);
//id pushButton5 = [cls performSelector:msel withObject:UIButtonTypeRoundedRect];//this code works correctly,but I want to do this by NSInvocation
//---------------------------
NSMethodSignature *msignatureTMP;
NSInvocation *anInvocationTMP;

msignatureTMP = [cls methodSignatureForSelector:msel];
anInvocationTMP = [NSInvocation invocationWithMethodSignature:msignatureTMP];
[anInvocationTMP setTarget:cls];
[anInvocationTMP setSelector:msel];

UIButtonType uibt_ = UIButtonTypeRoundedRect;
NSNumber *uibt = [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:uibt_];
NSArray *paramsTMP;
paramsTMP= [NSArray arrayWithObjects:uibt,nil];

id currentValTMP = [paramsTMP objectAtIndex:0];//getParam from NSArray
NSInteger i=2;
void* bufferTMP;

//if kind of NSValue unwrapp it.
if ([currentValTMP isKindOfClass:[NSValue class]]) {
    NSUInteger bufferSize = 0;
    NSGetSizeAndAlignment([currentValTMP objCType], &bufferSize, NULL);
    bufferTMP = malloc(bufferSize);
    [currentValTMP getValue:bufferTMP];//copy currentVal to bufer
    [anInvocationTMP setArgument:bufferTMP atIndex:i];// The +2 represents the (self) and (cmd) offsets
}else {
    [anInvocationTMP setArgument:&currentValTMP atIndex:i];//Again,+2 represents (self) and (cmd) offsets
}
void* result = malloc([[cls methodSignatureForSelector:msel] methodReturnLength]);
[anInvocationTMP invoke];
[anInvocationTMP getReturnValue:result];

NSLog(@"sizeof(UIButton)=%i,sizeof(result)=%i,methodreturnlength = %i,sizeof(*result)=%i",class_getInstanceSize(NSClassFromString(@"UIButton")),sizeof(result),[[cls methodSignatureForSelector:msel] methodReturnLength],sizeof(*result));

id pushButton5;
pushButton5=result;
//---------------------------

NSLog output: sizeof(UIButton)=140,sizeof(result)=4,methodreturnlength = 4,sizeof(*result)=1

The problem is that value from NSInvocation is pointer of size 4 bytes. It should point to UIButton object,size of 140 bytes. But actually refers to 1 byte data. So what does happen with UIButton object,that should be initialized by ‘buttonWithType:’?

Added after getting some answers:

To clarify: I want to get UIButton object, but after this code id pushButton5 = (id) result; ,when I try to work with pushButton5,it causes EXC_BAD_ACCESS. Can someone help me?

Can this happen because of this?

Class cls = NSClassFromString(@"UIButton");
...
[anInvocationTMP setTarget:cls];

It is correct, isn’t it?

Answer 1

result has type void* and your sizeof(*result) expression is measuing sizeof(void), which apparently yields 1 in your compiler.

To check type of an Objective-C object, use isKindOfClass: method:

id resObj = (id)result;
if ([resObj isKindOfClass:[UIButton class]])
    NSLog(@"mazel tov, it's a button");

Just be sure it’s really an objective-c object first.