Question

In the process of porting a really badly coded iOS project to OS X, in which I make a point of preserving the model layer in order to (later) being able to keep the two versions in sync.

I do not currently have access to change the iOS code base – and don’t particularly want to, either. Also, for all its faults, the model layer is tested and working.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, they say. So I guess my question is, is the code below broke or not? Notice there is no call to init after the alloc, and the class being instantiated is a direct subclass of NSObject.

...
SuspectClass *obj = [SuspectClass alloc];
obj.arrayProperty = [NSArray arrayWith...];

// etc.
...

I guess another way to put the question is if NSObject‘s init actually adds anything to an object?

Answer 1

From the documentation of init in NSObject comes the official answer: “An object isn’t ready to be used until it has been initialized.”

…and the practical answer: “The init method defined in the NSObject class does no initialization; it simply returns self.”

🙂

Though functional, I don’t think I’d trust a bare alloc given the number of places that warn that some form of init is required.