Parmanoir

EDIT BUGFIX : objc_super's receiver must be self, not the metaclass. The metaclass is only used in the second param, as a start point in the super method search.

More Objective-C runtime stuff !

Creating new ObjC classes at runtime is straightforward :

• call objc_allocateClassPair to start creation
• call class_addIvar to add any instance variables
• call objc_registerClassPair to finish up class creation

You can then add methods with class_addMethod. Methods can be added anytime, instance variables can only be added before objc_registerClassPair.

Creating a new ObjC class creates a class pair — a metaclass to hold class methods, a class to hold instance methods. They're really two distinct objects that you can manipulate as such : calling superclass on a metaclass will retrieve a metaclass.

// Plus sign registers a class method (stored in the metaclass)
+ (void)alloc;
// Minus sign registers an instance method (stored in the class)
- (id)init;

objc_getClass("NSView") retrieves the class, objc_getMetaClass("NSView") retrieves the metaclass. To add class or instance methods, call class_addMethod with the metaclass or the class.

As super is not runtime, we need to get the metaclass while handling the super call of a runtime-added method — even though we're in a class method, the runtime sets self as the class and not the metaclass. The first param of objc_super is self, the second is the metaclass to use as a start point for method search.

+ (id)allocWithZone:(NSZone*)zone
{
	... our custom code ...
	// Retrieve the meta class
	id metaclass = objc_getMetaClass(class_getName(self));
	// Super call
	struct objc_super superData = { self, [metaclass superclass] };
	return objc_msgSendSuper(&superData, @selector(allocWithZone:), zone);
}

Objective-C 2.0 Runtime Reference