Question

Let’s say I have a generic pointer in objective-c. This pointer could either be a Class object, or it could be an instance of that class. Is there any way to tell the difference between the two?

Example:

id pointerA = [someClass class];
id pointerB = [[someClass alloc] init];

bool pointerAIsAClass = is_this_a_Class(pointerA); // should be true
bool pointerBIsAClass = is_this_a_Class(pointerB); // should be false

How would I write the is_this_a_Class function so that it returns the proper bool value?

bool is_this_a_Class(id somePointer)
{
    // your code goes here
}

Answer 1

The most correct way is to check the class of the object, and see if it’s a metaclass:

BOOL object_isClass(id object) {
    return class_isMetaClass(object_getClass(object));
}

There are more answers here: Check if object is Class type