Question

In Objective-C is it possible to use a method in lieu of a block?

So for example, in stead of defining a block then calling the method:

[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request
                                   queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue]
                       completionHandler:^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *responseData, NSError *error) {
                           [self processTwitterSearchResponse:response data:responseData error:error];
                       }
 ];

Call the method directly:

[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request
                                   queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue]
                       completionHandler:(processTwitterSearchResponse:response data:responseData error:error)
 ];

Or some such.

Answer 1

Nope. If the method takes a block as its handler, you need to give it a block. Why?

There are some methods that take function pointers instead of blocks, like NSArray’s -sortedArrayUsingFunction:context: (as opposed to the block-based -sortedArrayUsingComparator:), but you definitely can’t just swap in a method signature where it expects a block.