The end of the section says, "In fact, rather than sending the alloc
message to self in a class method, it’s often better to send alloc to
[self class]. This way, if the class is subclassed, and the
rectangleOfColor: message is received by a subclass, the instance
returned will be the same type as the subclass." They list a GOOD
version and an EXCELLENT version of the rectangleOfColor: class
method. The only difference is that the GOOD version does "id
newInstance = [[self alloc] init];", while the EXELLENT version does
"id newInstance = [[[self class] alloc] init];".
I'm hoping that someone can explain this point to me, because I can't
seem to wrap my mind around it. I don't see why there would be a
difference between the two versions. It seems to me that [self
class] would return the same object that self points to, namely, your
subclass object. After all, self should point to the same object in
either version of the method (when the receiver is the subclass). If
self didn't point to the subclass object in the GOOD version
(suppose, for example, that it pointed to the subclass's superclass,
which contains the definition of the rectangleOfColor: method), then
[self class] wouldn't return the correct object in the EXCELLENT
version. Moreover, if [self alloc] created an instance of the
superclass rather than of the subclass, then the GOOD method would
actually be disastrous, not just less than excellent, because you'd
eventually be trying to assign values to non-existent instance
variables of the subclass.
I'd appreciate any clarification here. Thanks!
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