Please look to https://github.com/ConventionalC/ConventionalC, where many of these functionalities are being migrated. It provides more modern objective-c, rubyish categories, static library compilation, CocoaPod specs, and cleaner platform specific headers and sharing.
Peter DeWeese, Eye Street Research, LLC. http://research.eyestreet.com Purpose and Method
The primary purpose of this library is to DRY out verbose iOS code and reduce unnecessicary ceremony using language features such as categories, @dynamic, blocks, and the occasional macro. Rails and Java standards are borrowed from when reasonable. When methods are borrowed from other languages, they should generally be conformed to Objective-C convention. Derivative values should be made available as read only properties whenever possible for code brevity, as in the example @" asdf ".strip
.
I prefer including the source of small libraries in Cocoa Touch projects as git submodules to give full insight, easier contribution, and less compilation changes. Drag the es_ios_utils/es_ios_utils directory to your project and do not select to copy. When testing, open the es_ios_utils project. Importing the entire project and adding its targets as dependencies may be an alternative.
#import "ESUtils.h"
imports all of the utility categories and macros. Include it in your .pch file.
###Framework The default build creates a framework that can be included in another project.
###Statically Linked Library
There is no target for this right now, but it can be done. When including the compiled library in your project, open the build properties and add -ObjC
to "Other Linker Flags". In Xcode 3.x, use -all_load
or -force_load
. Without this flag, categories may not link properly.
See ESNSCategories.h and ESUICategories.h for more methods.
###isEmpty and isNotEmpty properties
Implemented for NSArray, NSDictionary, NSNull – which is always empty, NSSet, and NSString. nil.isEmpty returns false, so a full check requires !s || s.isEmpty
. Preferably, nil.isNotEmpty
returns false so no existance check is necessicary.
###macros
Very common and generic operations are included as macros for brevity, prefixed with '$'. Examples:
$array(object1, object2, nil)
$set(object1, object2, nil)
$format(@"My Format: %i", 3)
###ESDynamicMethodResolver Use @dynamic to conveniently bind properties files, xml documents, etc. See ESBoundUserDefaults.h for an example.
###UI
UIViews frames edition used to require recreation of a CGRect or multiple lines to get a rect from the view, manipulate it, and then set it again. Now you can use a property directly from the UIView, like myView.x += 20
.
UITableView convenience methods reduce usage of index paths. Methods that require a row index but no section assume the first section.
###Core Data Blocks are available for error handling and new object configuration.
- Add application tests for UI categories and ESBoundUserDefaults.
- Add application tests for core data.
- Test framework product.