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Interacting with the Runtime

Objective-C programs interact with the runtime system at three distinct levels: through Objective-C source code; through methods defined in the NSObject class of the Foundation framework; and through direct calls to runtime functions.

In this section:

Objective-C Source Code
NSObject Methods
Runtime Functions

Objective-C Source Code

For the most part, the runtime system works automatically and behind the scenes. You use it just by writing and compiling Objective-C source code.

When you compile code containing Objective-C classes and methods, the compiler creates the data structures and function calls that implement the dynamic characteristics of the language. The data structures capture information found in class and category definitions and in protocol declarations; they include the class and protocol objects discussed in Defining a Class and Protocols in The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language, as well as method selectors, instance variable templates, and other information distilled from source code. The principal runtime function is the one that sends messages, as described in “Messaging.” It’s invoked by source-code message expressions.

NSObject Methods

Most objects in Cocoa are subclasses of the NSObject class, so most objects inherit the methods it defines. (The notable exception is the NSProxy class; see “Message Forwarding” for more information.) Its methods therefore establish behaviors that are inherent to every instance and every class object. However, in a few cases, the NSObject class merely defines a template for how something should be done; it doesn’t provide all the necessary code itself.

For example, the NSObject class defines a description instance method that returns a string describing the contents of the class. This is primarily used for debugging—the GDB print-object command prints the string returned from this method. NSObject’s implementation of this method doesn’t know what the class contains, so it returns a string with the name and address of the object. Subclasses of NSObject can implement this method to return more details. For example, the Foundation class NSArray returns a list of descriptions of the objects it contains.

Some of the NSObject methods simply query the runtime system for information. These methods allow objects to perform introspection. Examples of such methods are the class method, which asks an object to identify its class; isKindOfClass: and isMemberOfClass:, which test an object’s position in the inheritance hierarchy; respondsToSelector:, which indicates whether an object can accept a particular message; conformsToProtocol:, which indicates whether an object claims to implement the methods defined in a specific protocol; and methodForSelector:, which provides the address of a method’s implementation. Methods like these give an object the ability to introspect about itself.

Runtime Functions

The runtime system is a dynamic shared library with a public interface consisting of a set of functions and data structures in the header files located within the directory /usr/include/objc. Many of these functions allow you to use plain C to replicate what the compiler does when you write Objective-C code. Others form the basis for functionality exported through the methods of the NSObject class. These functions make it possible to develop other interfaces to the runtime system and produce tools that augment the development environment; they’re not needed when programming in Objective-C. However, a few of the runtime functions might on occasion be useful when writing an Objective-C program. All of these functions are documented in Objective-C 2.0 Runtime Reference.

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