Can I hook when a weakly-referenced object (of arbitrary type) is freed?

Question

I\'m writing a container class in Swift, which works like as java.util.WeakHashMap in Java. My current implementation is here.

class WeakRefMap&         


        

Answer 1

Previous example has some bugs, for example:

Invalid size of dictionary bug: this example prints "1" instead of "2":

let dict = WeakRefMap<String, NSObject>()
autoreleasepool {
    let val = NSObject()
    dict["1"] = val
    dict["2"] = val
    print("dict size: \(dict.count)")
}

Fixed WeakRefMap:

private class DeallocWatcher<Key: Hashable> {

    let notify:(keys: Set<Key>)->Void

    private var keys = Set<Key>()

    func insertKey(key: Key) {
        keys.insert(key)
    }

    init(_ notify:(keys: Set<Key>)->Void) { self.notify = notify }
    deinit { notify(keys: keys) }
}

public class WeakRefMap<Key: Hashable, Value: AnyObject> {

    private var mapping = [Key: WeakBox<Value>]()

    public init() {}

    public subscript(key: Key) -> Value? {
        get { return mapping[key]?.raw }
        set {
            if let o = newValue {
                // Add helper to associated objects.
                // When `o` is deallocated, `watcher` is also deallocated.
                // So, `watcher.deinit()` will get called.

                if let watcher = objc_getAssociatedObject(o, unsafeAddressOf(self)) as? DeallocWatcher<Key> {

                    watcher.insertKey(key)
                } else {

                    let watcher = DeallocWatcher { [unowned self] (keys: Set<Key>) -> Void in
                        for key in keys {
                            self.mapping[key] = nil
                        }
                    }

                    watcher.insertKey(key)

                    objc_setAssociatedObject(o, unsafeAddressOf(self), watcher, .OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC)
                }

                mapping[key] = WeakBox(o)
            } else {
                if let index = mapping.indexForKey(key) {

                    let (_, value) = mapping[index]
                    objc_setAssociatedObject(value.raw, unsafeAddressOf(self), nil, .OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC)
                    mapping.removeAtIndex(index)
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public var count: Int { return mapping.count }

    deinit {
        // cleanup
        for e in self.mapping.values {
            objc_setAssociatedObject(e.raw, unsafeAddressOf(self), nil, .OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC)
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Sad to say, didSet or willSet observer doesn't get called when weak var raw property value is deallocated.

So, you have to use objc_setAssociatedObject in this case:

// helper class to notify deallocation
class DeallocWatcher {
    let notify:()->Void
    init(_ notify:()->Void) { self.notify = notify }
    deinit { notify() }
}

class WeakRefMap<Key: Hashable, Value: AnyObject> {

    private var mapping = [Key: WeakBox<Value>]()

    subscript(key: Key) -> Value? {
        get { return mapping[key]?.raw }
        set {
            if let o = newValue {
                // Add helper to associated objects.
                // When `o` is deallocated, `watcher` is also deallocated.
                // So, `watcher.deinit()` will get called.
                let watcher = DeallocWatcher { [unowned self] in self.mapping[key] = nil }
                objc_setAssociatedObject(o, unsafeAddressOf(self), watcher, objc_AssociationPolicy(OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC))
                mapping[key] = WeakBox(o)
            }
            else {
                mapping[key] = nil
            }
        }
    }

    var count: Int { return mapping.count }

    deinit {
        // cleanup
        for e in self.mapping.values {
            objc_setAssociatedObject(e.raw, unsafeAddressOf(self), nil, 0)
        }
    }
}

NOTE: Before Swift 1.2. this solution does not work for arbitrary Swift classes.