Private Methods in Objective-C, in Xcode 4.3 I no

Question

I have a lot question marks tolling above my head. What I don't get is before xcode 4.3 I needed to declare forward declarations (for private methods) in my implementation file.

Like in my .m file:

// deleting this with xcode 4.3 the below code still does work 
// in previous versions i had to put this because otherwise the compiler can't find methodFirst
@interface DetailViewController ()
- (void)methodFirst;
- (void)methodSecond;
@end


@implementation DetailViewController

- (void) methodSecond
{
   // if i delete the forward declaration now adays i dont get a compiler error that he cant find method first
   [self methodFirst];
}

- (void) methodFirst
{
}

@end

Now it seems I don't need to do that anymore? Did Apple update the compiler so that it isn't needed anymore to put forward declarations?

I can't find any reference to an official Apple source about this change. I wonder what other people have encountered in their new environment.

Answer 1

As of the LLVM Compiler version shipped with Xcode 4.3, if you try to call a method that the compiler has not previously seen, it will look in the rest of the current @implementation block to see if that method has been declared later. If so, then it uses that, and you don't get a warning. Hence, as of Xcode 4.3, there's much less need to pre-declare your internal methods. Clearly, you still need to declare methods that are publicly exposed to other classes.

This change was noted in the release notes of some of the Xcode 4.3 betas, but apparently didn't make it into the "What's New in Xcode 4.3" final documentation.

Unlike has been suggested in other answers, this is not just an "Undeclared Selector" warning that has been turned off by default. In fact, if you're using ARC, unrecognized selectors are still hard errors. Try calling [self myNonexistentMethod] and you'll see; the compiler still complains.

Answer 2

There aren't any private methods in Objective-C. What you're thinking of is the class continuation, the "nameless" category interface you can declare in your .m file to declare methods that will be in the class implementation, but that aren't in the public interface.

There's never been a requirement to declare methods before they're used. However, it's always been a good idea, and the compiler has a warning flag to indicate when methods that haven't been seen are used. The reason is to do with the operating system's calling convention for functions. Different types, such as structures, floating point numbers, integer numbers, and pointers, can all be handled in different ways when they are the arguments to or return values from functions. Indeed, on different computers and in different operating systems, they are handled in different ways. To know how to handle the arguments and return values for an Objective-C method, the compiler needs to know the signature for that method: how many arguments of what types it takes, and what type it returns.

If it hasn't seen a declaration of the method, then the compiler will need to make a guess. If that guess is incorrect, then it can end up putting the wrong values into the arguments, or interpreting the return value incorrectly, or trying to take something off the stack that doesn't exist.