objective c - Observing count in NSMutableArray

Question

I'd like to be notified, when the count, ie. number of items in an NSArray changes.. Of course I wouldn't need this, if I was in control of addition and removal of objects into the array. But I am not, it happens unpredictably with regards to Business Process Model and depends on external factors. Is there some simple elegant solution?

EDIT: I am correcting this to NSMutableArray of course..

Answer 1

You’ll need to use KVC. But how to go about doing it? After all, NSMutableArray is not Key-Value-Coding compliant for its mutation methods or contents changes. The answer is proxying –as subclassing NS[Mutable]Array is far too much of a hassle.

NSProxy is a great little class that you can use to intercept the messages sent to your array as though you were an NSMutableArray, then forward them on to some internal instance. Unfortunately, it is also not KVC compliant, as the guts of KVC live in NSObject. We’ll have to use that, then. A sample interface might look something like this:

@interface CFIKVCMutableArrayProxy : NSObject  {
    NSMutableArray *_innerArray;
}

- (NSUInteger)count;

- (void)insertObject:(id)anObject atIndex:(NSUInteger)index;
- (void)removeObjectAtIndex:(NSUInteger)index;
- (void)addObject:(id)anObject;
- (void)removeLastObject;
- (void)insertObjects:(NSArray *)objects atIndexes:(NSIndexSet *)indexes;
- (void)replaceObjectAtIndex:(NSUInteger)index withObject:(id)anObject;

//…

@end

As you can see, we’re simulating an interface for NSMutableArray, which is necessary, as our proxy should implement everything as though it were an NSMutableArray. This also makes the implementation as simple as possible, as we can just forward the selectors on to our inner NSMutableArray pointer. For the sake of brevity, I’ll only implement two methods to show you what a general outline looks like:

@implementation CFIKVCMutableArrayProxy

//…

- (NSUInteger)count {
    return _innerArray.count;
}

- (void)addObject:(id)anObject {
    [self willChangeValueForKey:@"count"];
    [_innerArray addObject:anObject];
    [self didChangeValueForKey:@"count"];
}

- (void)removeLastObject {
    [self willChangeValueForKey:@"count"];
    [_innerArray removeLastObject];
    [self didChangeValueForKey:@"count"];
}

@end

If you have no opportunities to wrap an array like this, then try to re-think your code. If an external dependency is forcing you into this kind of corner, try to remove it. It’s always a bad thing to work around your own tools.