Why is hitTest:withEvent: called three times for each touch?

Question

I have a subclass of UIView in which I've overridden hitTest:withEvent: as follows:

- (UIView *)hitTest:(CGPoint)point withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
    NSLog(@"Event = %@", event);
    return self;
}

For each touch in the view, I am seeing three calls to hitTest:withEvent:. These three calls are made before touch up. The output is as follows:

2011-07-01 09:20:58.553 AppName[930:207] Event = <UITouchesEvent: 0x6a08360> timestamp: 4297.16 touches: {(
)}
2011-07-01 09:20:58.553 AppName[930:207] Event = <UITouchesEvent: 0x6a08360> timestamp: 4297.16 touches: {(
)}
2011-07-01 09:20:58.554 AppName[930:207] Event = <UITouchesEvent: 0x6a08360> timestamp: 4304.54 touches: {(
)}

Based on the timestamps and addresses, it appears as if a single UITouchesEvent object is being used and its timestamp isn't properly set until the third call. Can anyone explain why hitTest:withEvent: gets called three times like this? I'm not looking for a workaround. I just want to understand what's going on.

Answer 1

I had the same problem and was able to solve it with this code. Even though pointInside and hitTest get called 3 times, touchesBegan (or touchesEnded) of the UIView that was touched only gets called once.

- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{   
    if (event.type == UIEventTypeTouches)
        NSLog(@"%@", self);
}


- (UIView *)hitTest:(CGPoint)point withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    if ([self pointInside:point withEvent:event])
        return self;

    return [super hitTest:point withEvent:event];
}

- (BOOL)pointInside:(CGPoint)point withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    if (CGRectContainsPoint([self bounds], point))
    {
        if (event.type == UIEventTypeTouches)
        {           
            return YES;
        }
    }

    return NO;
}

Answer 2

Do you have more than one subview?

From the docs:

This method traverses the view hierarchy by sending the pointInside:withEvent: message to each subview to determine which subview should receive a touch event. If pointInside:withEvent: returns YES, then the subview’s hierarchy is traversed; otherwise, its branch of the view hierarchy is ignored. You rarely need to call this method yourself, but you might override it to hide touch events from subviews.