On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:39 PM, Chris Hanson <email@hidden> wrote:
> It is perfectly legal to return an NSMutableArray from a hypothetical
> +(NSArray *)array method.
>
> However, all the sender of that +(NSArray *)array message can know is that
> the result can be treated as an NSArray. It can't know whether an NSArray
> or NSMutableArray is returned (unless it does extra work, like using
> -isKindOfClass:, which also happens to be fragile).
Sure. But it gives you *more* information than if it just returns
"id". I agree with you in all other respects of your post, but I don't
agree that +[NSArray array] returns "id" because if it returned
"NSArray *" you'd have to have a separate declaration for
+[NSMutableArray array]. Indeed, that line of reasoning leads to
John's way of thinking: that if you return something more specific
than "id", it is in some sense indicative that the returned object is
more likely to be of a specific class, rather than a subclass thereof.
Hamish
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