Cast closures/blocks

Question

In Objective-C, I often pass around blocks. I use them very often to implement patterns that help avoid storing stuff into instance variables, thus avoiding threading/timing issues.

For example, I assign them to a CAAnimation via -[CAAnimation setValue:forKey:] so I can execute the block when the animation is finished. (Objective-C can treat blocks as objects; you also can do [someBlock copy] and [someBlock release].)

However, trying to use these patterns in Swift together with Objective-C seems to be very difficult. (Edit: and we can see that the language is still in flux: have adapted the code so it works on Xcode6-beta2, previous version worked on Xcode6-beta1.)

For example, I can't convert AnyObject back to a block/closure. The following yields an error from the compiler:

override func animationDidStop(anim: CAAnimation!, finished flag: Bool)
{
    let completion : AnyObject! = anim.valueForKey("completionClosure")
    (completion as (@objc_block ()->Void))()
    // Cannot convert the expression's type 'Void' to type '@objc_block () -> Void'
}

I have found a workaround, but it's pretty ugly, IMHO: in my bridging header, I have:

static inline id blockToObject(void(^block)())
{
    return block;
}

static inline void callBlockAsObject(id block)
{
    ((void(^)())block)();
}

And now I can do this in Swift:

func someFunc(completion: (@objc_block ()->Void))
{
    let animation = CAKeyframeAnimation(keyPath: "position")
    animation.delegate = self
    animation.setValue(blockToObject(completion), forKey: "completionClosure")
    …
}

override func animationDidStop(anim: CAAnimation!, finished flag: Bool)
{
    let completion : AnyObject! = anim.valueForKey("completionClosure")
    callBlockAsObject(completion)
}

It works, but I'd need a new function for every block type that I'd like to use and I'm hacking around the compiler which can't be good either.

So is there a way to solve this in a pure Swift way?

Answer 1

How about a generic Block parameterized with the function type?

class Block<T> {
  let f : T
  init (_ f: T) { self.f = f }
}

Allocate one of these; it will be a subtype of AnyObject and thus be assignable into dictionaries and arrays. This doesn't seem too onerous especially with the trailing closure syntax. In use:

  5> var b1 = Block<() -> ()> { print ("Blocked b1") }
b1: Block<() -> ()> = {
  f = ...
}
  6> b1.f()
Blocked b1

and another example where the Block type is inferred:

 11> var ar = [Block { (x:Int) in print ("Block: \(x)") }]
ar: [Block<(Int) -> ()>] = 1 value {
  [0] = {
    f = ...
  }
}
 12> ar[0].f(111)
Block: 111

Answer 2

I like GoZoner's solution - wrap the block in a custom class - but since you asked for the actual "Swift way" to perform the cast between a block and an AnyObject, I'll just give the answer to that question: cast with unsafeBitCast. (I'm guessing that this is more or less the same as Bryan Chen's reinterpretCast, which no longer exists.)

So, in my own code:

typealias MyDownloaderCompletionHandler = @objc_block (NSURL!) -> ()

Note: in Swift 2, this would be:

typealias MyDownloaderCompletionHandler = @convention(block) (NSURL!) -> ()

Here's the cast in one direction:

// ... cast from block to AnyObject
let ch : MyDownloaderCompletionHandler = // a completion handler closure
let ch2 : AnyObject = unsafeBitCast(ch, AnyObject.self)

Here's the cast back in the other direction:

// ... cast from AnyObject to block
let ch = // the AnyObject
let ch2 = unsafeBitCast(ch, MyDownloaderCompletionHandler.self)
// and now we can call it
ch2(url)