Question

Is it possible to create a class with no init method so as to force all callers to create the object with a factory method instead?

Answer 1

So basically, you want to make sure that your class is never initialized using -init, right? You can’t do exactly what you want to do, but you can come close.

Since you inherit from NSObject, you have an init method and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it from being called. That said, you could override init to this:

- (id)init
{
   [self dealloc];
   @throw [NSException exceptionWithName:@"MyExceptionName" reason:@"Reason" userInfo:nil];
   return nil;
}

This way, anytime someone calls your -init method, it kills the object, so practically speaking, your init method is pretty much un-callable.