Re: NSTimer

[David Chisnall]

On 27 Feb 2009, at 06:34, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:

> You need to have some input source in the run loop (a timer doesn't  
> count) or it will return immediately, as specified in the Apple docs.


The docs say:

> If no input sources or timers are attached to the run loop, this  
> method exits immediately

Timers are not considered input sources according to this comment in  
the docs:

> A timer is not considered an input source and may fire multiple  
> times while waiting for this method to return


A runloop will not exit immediately if there are timers but not input  
sources connected, but methods that wait for one event from an input  
source may fire the timer more than once.

> The behavior on MacOS when I tested it was strange and  
> inconsistent ... sometime the loop returned immediately as  
> documented, sometimes it blocked.  My suspicion is that MacOS-X has  
> an undocumented feature of sometimes putting input sources in the  
> run loop

This is not undocumented.  The NSRunloop documentation clearly states:

> Manually removing all known input sources and timers from the run  
> loop is not a guarantee that the run loop will exit. Mac OS X can  
> install and remove additional input sources as needed to process  
> requests targeted at the receiver’s thread.



David