Question

I want to create a subclass of NSMutableArray and need to override the -initWithObjects: method.

But How to call [super xxx];?

- (id) initWithObjects:(id)firstObj, ... {
    [super initWithObjects:firstObj]; // Error: Missing sentinel in method dispatch
    // Error: The result of a delegate init call must be immediately returned or assigned to "self"

}

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can’t. As discussed in the documentation for NSArray:

You might want to implement an initializer for your subclass that is
suited to the backing store that the subclass is managing. The NSArray
class does not have a designated initializer, so your initializer need
only invoke the init method of super. The NSArray class adopts the
NSCopying, NSMutableCopying, and NSCoding protocols; if you want
instances of your own custom subclass created from copying or coding,
override the methods in these protocols.

So you can assign self = [super init]; and add the objects from your initialiser to the resulting object. Indeed, because of the way that NSArray is implemented, calling any -initWith… method is likely to return an instance of a different NSArray subclass.

Notice that the documentation also discusses alternatives to subclassing NSArray that may be easier, more reliable or better in some other way.