Calling a method on an unitialized object (null pointer)
- by Florin
What is the normal behavior in Objective-C if you call a method on an object (pointer) that is nil (maybe because someone forgot to initialize it)? Shouldn't it generate some kind of an error (segmentation fault, null pointer exception...)?
If this is normal behavior, is there a way of changing this behavior (by configuring the compiler) so that the program raises some kind of error / exception at runtime?
To make it more clear what I am talking about, here's an example.
Having this class:
@interface Person : NSObject {
NSString *name;
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;
- (void)sayHi;
@end
with this implementation:
@implementation Person
@synthesize name;
- (void)dealloc {
[name release];
[super dealloc];
}
- (void)sayHi {
NSLog(@"Hello");
NSLog(@"My name is %@.", name);
}
@end
Somewhere in the program I do this:
Person *person = nil;
//person = [[Person alloc] init]; // let's say I comment this line
person.name = @"Mike"; // shouldn't I get an error here?
[person sayHi]; // and here
[person release]; // and here
