Is it ever Ok to have a 'strong' reference for a delegate?

Question

I have a class that retrieves JSON from a URL and returns the data via the protocol/delegate pattern.

MRDelegateClass.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@protocol MRDelegateClassProtocol
@optional
- (void)dataRetrieved:(NSDictionary *)json;
- (void)dataFailed:(NSError *)error;
@end

@interface MRDelegateClass : NSObject
@property (strong) id <MRDelegateClassProtocol> delegate;

- (void)getJSONData;
@end

Note that I'm using strong for my delegate property. More about that later...

I am trying to write a 'wrapper' class that implements getJSONData in a block-based format.

MRBlockWrapperClassForDelegate.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

typedef void(^SuccessBlock)(NSDictionary *json);
typedef void(^ErrorBlock)(NSError *error);

@interface MRBlockWrapperClassForDelegate : NSObject
+ (void)getJSONWithSuccess:(SuccessBlock)success orError:(ErrorBlock)error;
@end

MRBlockWrapperClassForDelegate.m

#import "MRBlockWrapperClassForDelegate.h"
#import "MRDelegateClass.h"

@interface DelegateBlock:NSObject <MRDelegateClassProtocol>
@property (nonatomic, copy) SuccessBlock successBlock;
@property (nonatomic, copy) ErrorBlock errorBlock;
@end

@implementation DelegateBlock
- (id)initWithSuccessBlock:(SuccessBlock)aSuccessBlock andErrorBlock:(ErrorBlock)aErrorBlock {
    self = [super init];
    if (self) {
        _successBlock = aSuccessBlock;
        _errorBlock = aErrorBlock;
    }
    return self;
}

#pragma mark - <MRDelegateClass> protocols
- (void)dataRetrieved:(NSDictionary *)json {
    self.successBlock(json);
}
- (void)dataFailed:(NSError *)error {
    self.errorBlock(error);
}
@end

// main class
@interface MRBlockWrapperClassForDelegate()
@end

@implementation MRBlockWrapperClassForDelegate

+ (void)getJSONWithSuccess:(SuccessBlock)success orError:(ErrorBlock)error {
    MRDelegateClass *delegateClassInstance = [MRDelegateClass new];
    DelegateBlock *delegateBlock = [[DelegateBlock alloc] initWithSuccessBlock:success andErrorBlock:error];
    delegateClassInstance.delegate = delegateBlock; // set the delegate as the new delegate block
    [delegateClassInstance getJSONData];
}

@end

I've come to the objective-c world relatively recently (only lived in ARC times, and still coming to terms with blocks) and admittedly my understanding of memory management is on the slimmer side of things.

This code seems to work fine, but only if I have my delegate as strong. I understand that my delegate should be weak to avoid potential retain-cycles. Looking in instruments, I find that allocations do not continue to grow with continued calls. However, I believe 'best practice' is to have weak delegates.

Questions

Q1) is it ever 'ok' to have strong delegates

Q2) how could I implement the block-based wrapper leaving the delegate of the underlying class as weak delegate (ie. prevent the *delegateBlock from being deallocated before it receives the protocol methods)?

Answer 1

Q1 - Yes. As you point out yourself having delegate properties being weak is a recommendation to help avoid retain cycles. So there is nothing wrong per se with having a strong delegate, but if the clients of your class expect it to be weak you may cause them surprises. The better approach is to keep the delegate weak and for the server side (the class with the delegate property) to keep a strong reference internally for those periods it needs one. As @Scott points out Apple documents doing this for NSURLConnection. Of course that approach doesn't solve your issue - where you want the server to retain the delegate for you...

Q2 - Looked at from the client side the problem is how to keep a delegate alive as long as a server with a weak reference to it requires it. There is a standard solution to this problem called associated objects. In brief the Objective-C runtime essentially allows a key-collection of objects to be associated with another object, along with an association policy which states how long that association should last. To use this mechanism you just need to pick your own unique key, which is of type void * - i.e. an address. The following code outline shows how to use this using NSOpenPanel as an example:

#import <objc/runtime.h> // import associated object functions

static char myUniqueKey; // the address of this variable is going to be unique

NSOpenPanel *panel = [NSOpenPanel openPanel];

MyOpenPanelDelegate *myDelegate = [MyOpenPanelDelegate new];
// associate the delegate with the panel so it lives just as long as the panel itself
objc_setAssociatedObject(panel, &myUniqueKey, myDelegate, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN);
// assign as the panel delegate
[panel setDelegate:myDelegate];

The association policy OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN will retain the passed in object (myDelegate) for as long as the object it is associated with (panel) and then release it.

Adopting this solution avoids making the delegate property itself strong and allows the client to control whether the delegate is retained. If you are also implementing the server you can of course provide a method to do this, maybe associatedDelegate:?, to avoid the client needing to define the key and call objc_setAssociatedObject itself. (Or you can add it to an existing class using a category.)

HTH.

Answer 2

It entirely depends on the architecture of your objects.

When people use weak delegates, it's because the delegate is usually some kind of "parent" object, which retains the thing that has the delegate (let's call the "delegator"). Why does it have to be a parent object? It doesn't have to be; however, in most use cases it turns out to be the most convenient pattern. Since the delegate is a parent object that retains the delegator, the delegator can't retain the delegate or it will have a retain cycle, so it holds a weak reference to the delegate.

However, that is not the only use situation. Take, for example, UIAlertView and UIActionSheet in iOS. The usual way that they are used is: inside a function, create an alert view with a message and add buttons to it, set its delegate, perform any other customization, call -show on it, and then forget it (it is not stored anywhere). It's a kind of "fire and forget" kind of mechanism. Once you show it, you don't need to retain it or anything and it will still be displayed on screen. It's possible in some cases you might want to store the alert view around so you can programmatically dismiss it, but that is rare; in the vast majority of use cases, you simply show and forget it, and just handle any delegate calls.

So in this case, the proper style would be a strong delegate, because 1) the parent object does not retain the alert view, so there is no issue with a retain cycle, and 2) the delegate needs to be kept around, so that when some button is pressed on the alert view, someone will be around to respond to it. Now, a lot of times, #2 isn't a problem because the delegate (parent object) is some kind of view controller or something that is otherwise retained by something else. But this is not always the case. For example, I can simply have a method that is not part of any view controller, which anyone can call to show an alert view, and if the user presses Yes, uploads something to the server. Since it's not part of any controller, it likely is not retained by anything. But it needs to stay around long enough until the alert view is done. So ideally the alert view should have a strong reference to it.

But as I've mentioned before, this is not always what you want for an alert view; sometimes you want to keep it around and dismiss it programmatically. In this case, you want a weak delegate or it will cause a retain cycle. So should an alert view have a strong or weak delegate? Well, the caller should decide! In some situations the caller wants strong; in others the caller wants weak. But how is this possible? The alert view delegate is declared by the alert view class, and must be declared as either strong or weak.

Fortunately, there is a solution that does let the caller decide -- a blocks-based callback. In a blocks-based API, the block essentially becomes the delegate; but the block is not the parent object. Usually the block is created in the calling class and captures self so that it can perform actions on the "parent object". The delegator (alert view in this case) always has a strong reference to the block. However, the block may have a strong or weak reference to the parent object, depending on how the block is written in the calling code (to capture a weak reference to the parent object, don't use self directly in the block, and instead, create a weak version of self outside the block, and let the block use that instead). In this way, the calling code fully controls whether the delegator has a strong or weak reference to it.

Answer 3

You are correct in that delegates are usually weakly referenced. However, there are use cases where a strong reference is preferred, or even necessary. Apple uses this in NSURLConnection:

During a download the connection maintains a strong reference to the delegate. It releases that strong reference when the connection finishes loading, fails, or is canceled.

An NSURLConnection instance can only be used once. After it finishes (either with failure or success), it releases the delegate, and since the delegate is readonly, it can't be (safely) reused.

You can do something similar. In your dataRetrieved and dataFailed methods, set your delegate to nil. You probably don't need to make your delegate readonly if you want to reuse your object, but you will have to assign your delegate again.