Question

I’m trying to access a property in my app delegate from another class (something I thought would be rather simply) but I’m having troubles in doing so. My files currently look like this:

LTAppDelegate.h

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import "Subject.h"

@interface LTAppDelegate : NSObject <NSApplicationDelegate, NSOutlineViewDelegate, NSOutlineViewDataSource, NSMenuDelegate> {

}

@property Subject *selectedSubject;

@end

LTAppDelegate.m

@synthesize selectedSubject;

The value for selectedSubject is then set inside applicationDidFinishLaunchingin LTAppDelegate.m. Now I’m wanting to get access to this from another class that I have, which is called LTTableViewController and is setup like so:

LTTableViewController.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "LTAppDelegate.h"
#import "Subject.h"
#import "Note.h"

@interface LTTableViewController : NSObject{
    NSMutableArray *notesArray;
    LTAppDelegate *appDelegate;
    Subject *s;
}

-(IBAction)currentSubjectDetails:(id)sender;

@end

LTTableViewController.m

#import "LTTableViewController.h"

@implementation LTTableViewController

- (id)init
{
    self = [super init];
    if (self) {
        appDelegate = ((LTAppDelegate *)[[NSApplication sharedApplication] delegate]);

        s = [appDelegate selectedSubject];
        NSLog(@"Test Subject: %@", [s title]);

    }
    return self;
}

-(IBAction)currentSubjectDetails:(id)sender{
    NSLog(@"Selected Subject: %@", [s title]);

}

After inserting various NSLog() messages it would appear that the init method of LTTableViewController is called before applicationDidFinishLaunchingis called in LTAppDelegate. Based on that it makes sense that the “Test Subject” NSLog() in LTTableViewController.m init displays null; however, the ‘currentSubjectDetails’ method is linked to a button on the interface and when that is pressed after the app is finished loading, the NSLog() message still returns null.

Is there anything obvious I’m missing here. I feel like I’m being a little stupid and missing something really basic.

Answer 1

Similar issue is described here http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk-development/11537-viewcontroller-called-before-applicationdidfinishlaunching.html Adding this kind of functionality in the constructor is usually not recommended. Generally, I’d suggest using parameters and not relying on hidden dependencies as those will necessarily depend on the order of execution and you lose the help of the compiler to avoid invalid values. View controller initializers should not be used to store mutable references since view controllers are initialized automatically by predefined constructors, and you cannot pass parameters to them this way.

If you need to access the app delegate, then obtain it, perform operations on it and drop the reference. Try not to cache it, you’ll very likely introduce hidden issues. I suggest you hook into the appear-disappear cycle if the viewed contents depend on any kind of current state.