Re: question regarding explicit exception in NSKeyValueCoding.m:429 -[NSObject(KeyValueCoding) setValue:forUndefinedKey:]

[David Chisnall]

On 28 Jul 2011, at 15:06, Sebastian Reitenbach wrote:

> the exception happens here:NSKeyValueCoding.m:429 -[NSObject(KeyValueCoding) 
> setValue:forUndefinedKey:] 
> This exception is unconditionally. I first tried to 
> WANT_DEPRECATED_KVC_COMPAT, and recompiled, but that did not helped.
> Then I commented out the exception, and OGo is just fine with that.
> 
> Obviously, libFoundation did not raised an exception, so I'm a bit wondering, 
> who is/was right?

GNUstep is right.  On OS X:

$ cat undefined.m
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

int main(void)
{
        [NSAutoreleasePool new];
        [[NSObject new] setValue: @"foo" forUndefinedKey: @"bar"];
        return 0;
}
$ clang -framework Cocoa undefined.m 
$ ./a.out
2011-07-28 15:17:05.872 a.out[56109:903] *** Terminating app due to uncaught 
exception 'NSUnknownKeyException', reason: '[<NSObject 0x100111410> 
setValue:forUndefinedKey:]: this class is not key value coding-compliant for 
the key bar.'

> I don't have a mac, so cannot check what would happen there if I'd run into 
> this setValue:forUndefinedKey:?

It throws an NSUnknownKeyException.  This is the documented behaviour when you 
try to set a nonexistent key.  Why is OGo trying to do this?  What is it 
expecting to happen?

> Anyways, instead of commenting out the exception, I guess I need to put an 
> exception handler somewhere, and catch it?
> Am I on the right track here?

No, silently discarding missing key error is almost certainly the wrong thing 
to do.  If that is the desired behaviour for a specific class, then it should 
override setValue:forUndefinedKey: and discard it, but more likely it should 
not be setting values for keys that don't exist...

David