This document is meant to describe some of the GNU Objective-C runtime
features. It is not intended to teach you Objective-C, there are several
resources on the Internet that present the language. Questions and
comments about this document to Ovidiu Predescu
mailto:ovidiu@@cup.hp.com.
8.1. +load: Executing code before main
The GNU Objective-C runtime provides a way that allows you to execute
code before the execution of the program enters the main
function. The code is executed on a per-class and a per-category basis,
through a special class method +load.
This facility is very useful if you want to initialize global variables
which can be accessed by the program directly, without sending a message
to the class first. The usual way to initialize global variables, in the
+initialize method, might not be useful because
+initialize is only called when the first message is sent to a
class object, which in some cases could be too late.
Suppose for example you have a FileStream class that declares
Stdin, Stdout and Stderr as global variables, like
below:
FileStream *Stdin = nil;
FileStream *Stdout = nil;
FileStream *Stderr = nil;
@implementation FileStream
+ (void)initialize
{
Stdin = [[FileStream new] initWithFd:0];
Stdout = [[FileStream new] initWithFd:1];
Stderr = [[FileStream new] initWithFd:2];
}
/* Other methods here */
@end
|
In this example, the initialization of Stdin, Stdout and
Stderr in +initialize occurs too late. The programmer can
send a message to one of these objects before the variables are actually
initialized, thus sending messages to the nil object. The
+initialize method which actually initializes the global
variables is not invoked until the first message is sent to the class
object. The solution would require these variables to be initialized
just before entering main.
The correct solution of the above problem is to use the +load
method instead of +initialize:
@implementation FileStream
+ (void)load
{
Stdin = [[FileStream new] initWithFd:0];
Stdout = [[FileStream new] initWithFd:1];
Stderr = [[FileStream new] initWithFd:2];
}
/* Other methods here */
@end
|
The +load is a method that is not overridden by categories. If a
class and a category of it both implement +load, both methods are
invoked. This allows some additional initializations to be performed in
a category.
This mechanism is not intended to be a replacement for +initialize.
You should be aware of its limitations when you decide to use it
instead of +initialize.
8.1.1. What you can and what you cannot do in +load
The +load implementation in the GNU runtime guarantees you the following
things:
you can write whatever C code you like;
you can send messages to Objective-C constant strings (@"this is a
constant string");
you can allocate and send messages to objects whose class is implemented
in the same file;
the +load implementation of all super classes of a class are executed before the +load of that class is executed;
the +load implementation of a class is executed before the
+load implementation of any category.
In particular, the following things, even if they can work in a
particular case, are not guaranteed:
You should make no assumptions about receiving +load in sibling
classes when you write +load of a class. The order in which
sibling classes receive +load is not guaranteed.
The order in which +load and +initialize are called could
be problematic if this matters. If you don't allocate objects inside
+load, it is guaranteed that +load is called before
+initialize. If you create an object inside +load the
+initialize method of object's class is invoked even if
+load was not invoked. Note if you explicitly call +load
on a class, +initialize will be called first. To avoid possible
problems try to implement only one of these methods.
The +load method is also invoked when a bundle is dynamically
loaded into your running program. This happens automatically without any
intervening operation from you. When you write bundles and you need to
write +load you can safely create and send messages to objects whose
classes already exist in the running program. The same restrictions as
above apply to classes defined in bundle.
