Re: What class are you?

[Dwight Wilson]

>I'm having to track down a bug where an object appearing in a list is not
>the kind it is supposed to be (!).
>
>Does anyone know what the syntax is for getting the class name of the
>offending object back, as a printable string?

Try the function:

class_get_class_name(Class class)

>In fact, the Next book discusses many methods in its early chapters that
>are not mentioned in the formal language definition, which leads me to
>believe the runtime system is involved. So: where do I find comprehensive
>documentation for the objects and methods available with the GNU version of
>ObjectiveC?

On a Linux system, you can look in the rather obscure directory:

/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/2.7.2/include/objc

The files objc.h and objc-api.h are of particular interest.  While
the functions aren't documented, you'll at least get a list of 
functions available.  The lack of documentation is annoying and leads
to such questions as

What's the difference between these functions?
Class objc_get_class(const char *name)
and
Class objc_lookup_class(const char *name)

And, what does this intriguingly named function do?
Class class_pose_as(Class imposter, Class superclass)

I suppose I'll eventually be desperate enough to download the 
runtime source and look through it.

-Dwight

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