Using objc_setAssociatedObject with weak references

Question

I know that OBJC_ASSOCIATION_ASSIGN exists, but does it zero the reference if the target object is dealloced? Or is it like the old days where that reference needs to get n

Answer 1

As ultramiraculous demonstrated, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_ASSIGN does not do zeroing weak reference and you risk to access a deallocated object. But it’s quite easy to implement yourself. You just need a simple class to wrap an object with a weak reference:

@interface WeakObjectContainer : NSObject
@property (nonatomic, readonly, weak) id object;
@end

@implementation WeakObjectContainer
- (instancetype) initWithObject:(id)object
{
    if (!(self = [super init]))
        return nil;

    _object = object;

    return self;
}
@end

Then you must associate the WeakObjectContainer as OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN(_NONATOMIC):

objc_setAssociatedObject(self, &MyKey, [[WeakObjectContainer alloc] initWithObject:object], OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC);

and use the object property to access it in order to get a zeroing weak reference:

id object = [objc_getAssociatedObject(self, &MyKey) object];