Question

Is there a return type for “any primitive” similar to the way you can use NSObject as the return type for any object? I tried using id, but the compiler was giving me an error that it was trying to convert a primitive to a reference.

Here’s what I’m trying to do. :

-(void)setObject:(NSObject*)obj forKey:(NSString*)key {
    [sharedInstance.variables setObject:obj forKey:key];
}


-(NSObject*)getObjectForKey:(NSString*)key {
    return [sharedInstance.variables objectForKey:key];
}


-(void)setValue:(???)value forKey:(NSString*)key {
    [sharedInstance.variables setValue:value forKey:key];
}


-(???)getValueForKey:(NSString*)key {
    return [sharedInstance.variables valueForKey:key];
}

The alternative that I have though of is to use separate methods (getIntForKey, getFloatForKey, etc.) to access the values.

Answer 1

I eventually worked through this. The ultimate solution was to have separate accessor/mutator methods per type. So now I have setIntForKey, setBoolForKey, getIntForKey, getBoolForKey, etc. The drawback is quite obvious, in that I can’t call one method to set values and another to retrieve them. The advantages are numerous, however. Because the compiler knows what object or primitive type the method is expecting at compile time, I gain compile time checking for all of these methods. Additionally, I don’t have to worry with casting the retrieved values to their primitive types (obviously the returned NSObjects are a different story).