Cast closures/blocks

Question

In Objective-C, I often pass around blocks. I use them very often to implement patterns that help avoid storing stuff into instance variables, thus avoiding threading/timing

Answer 1

How about a generic Block parameterized with the function type?

class Block<T> {
  let f : T
  init (_ f: T) { self.f = f }
}

Allocate one of these; it will be a subtype of AnyObject and thus be assignable into dictionaries and arrays. This doesn't seem too onerous especially with the trailing closure syntax. In use:

  5> var b1 = Block<() -> ()> { print ("Blocked b1") }
b1: Block<() -> ()> = {
  f = ...
}
  6> b1.f()
Blocked b1

and another example where the Block type is inferred:

 11> var ar = [Block { (x:Int) in print ("Block: \(x)") }]
ar: [Block<(Int) -> ()>] = 1 value {
  [0] = {
    f = ...
  }
}
 12> ar[0].f(111)
Block: 111

Answer 2

I like GoZoner's solution - wrap the block in a custom class - but since you asked for the actual "Swift way" to perform the cast between a block and an AnyObject, I'll just give the answer to that question: cast with unsafeBitCast. (I'm guessing that this is more or less the same as Bryan Chen's reinterpretCast, which no longer exists.)

So, in my own code:

typealias MyDownloaderCompletionHandler = @objc_block (NSURL!) -> ()

Note: in Swift 2, this would be:

typealias MyDownloaderCompletionHandler = @convention(block) (NSURL!) -> ()

Here's the cast in one direction:

// ... cast from block to AnyObject
let ch : MyDownloaderCompletionHandler = // a completion handler closure
let ch2 : AnyObject = unsafeBitCast(ch, AnyObject.self)

Here's the cast back in the other direction:

// ... cast from AnyObject to block
let ch = // the AnyObject
let ch2 = unsafeBitCast(ch, MyDownloaderCompletionHandler.self)
// and now we can call it
ch2(url)

Answer 3

Here's yet another solution, allowing us to cast to exchange values with Objective-C. It builds on GoZoner's idea of wrapping the function in a class; the difference is our class is an NSObject subclass, and can thus give the function Objective-C block memory management without any hackery, and can be directly used as an AnyObject and handed over to Objective-C:

typealias MyStringExpecter = (String) -> ()
class StringExpecterHolder : NSObject {
    var f : MyStringExpecter! = nil
}

Here's how to use it to wrap a function and pass where an AnyObject is expected:

func f (s:String) {println(s)}
let holder = StringExpecterHolder()
holder.f = f

let lay = CALayer()
lay.setValue(holder, forKey:"myFunction")

And here's how to extract the function later and call it:

let holder2 = lay.valueForKey("myFunction") as StringExpecterHolder
holder2.f("testing")

Answer 4

All you need to do is use reinterpretCast to perform force cast.

(reinterpretCast(completion) as (@objc_block Void -> Void))()

from REPL

  1> import Foundation
  2> var block : @objc_block Void -> Void = { println("test")}
block: @objc_block Void -> Void =
  3> var obj = reinterpretCast(block) as AnyObject // this is how to cast block to AnyObject given it have @objc_block attribute
obj: __NSMallocBlock__ = {}
  4> var block2 = reinterpretCast(obj) as (@objc_block Void -> Void)
block2: (@objc_block Void -> Void) =
  5> block2()
test
  6>