Using as a concrete type conforming to protocol AnyObject is not supported
Why are you trying to use generics? I would suggest doing the following:
import Foundation
import UIKit
protocol MyDelegate : AnyObject {
}
class WeakContainer : AnyObject {
weak var value: MyDelegate?
}
class ViewController: UIViewController {
var delegates = [WeakContainer]()
}
There is also NSValue
's nonretainedObject
I ran into the same problem when I tried to implement weak containers. As @plivesey points out in a comment above, this seems to be a bug in Swift 2.2 / Xcode 7.3, but it is expected to work.
However, the problem does not occur for some Foundation protocols. For example, this compiles:
let container = WeakContainer<NSCacheDelegate>()
I found out that this works for protocols marked with the @objc
attribute. You can use this as a workaround:
Workaround 1
@objc
public protocol MyDelegate : AnyObject { }
let container = WeakContainer<MyDelegate>() // No compiler error
As this can lead to other problems (some types cannot be represented in Objective-C), here is an alternative approach:
Workaround 2
Drop the AnyObject
requirement from the container, and cast the value to AnyObject
internally.
struct WeakContainer<T> {
private weak var _value:AnyObject?
var value: T? {
get {
return _value as? T
}
set {
_value = newValue as? AnyObject
}
}
}
protocol MyDelegate : AnyObject { }
var container = WeakContainer<MyDelegate>() // No compiler error
Caveat: Setting a value that conforms to T
, but is not an AnyObject
, fails.
I had the same idea to create weak container with generics.
As result I created wrapper for NSHashTable
and did some workaround for your compiler error.
class WeakSet<ObjectType>: SequenceType {
var count: Int {
return weakStorage.count
}
private let weakStorage = NSHashTable.weakObjectsHashTable()
func addObject(object: ObjectType) {
guard object is AnyObject else { fatalError("Object (\(object)) should be subclass of AnyObject") }
weakStorage.addObject(object as? AnyObject)
}
func removeObject(object: ObjectType) {
guard object is AnyObject else { fatalError("Object (\(object)) should be subclass of AnyObject") }
weakStorage.removeObject(object as? AnyObject)
}
func removeAllObjects() {
weakStorage.removeAllObjects()
}
func containsObject(object: ObjectType) -> Bool {
guard object is AnyObject else { fatalError("Object (\(object)) should be subclass of AnyObject") }
return weakStorage.containsObject(object as? AnyObject)
}
func generate() -> AnyGenerator<ObjectType> {
let enumerator = weakStorage.objectEnumerator()
return anyGenerator {
return enumerator.nextObject() as! ObjectType?
}
}
}
Usage:
protocol MyDelegate : AnyObject {
func doWork()
}
class MyClass: AnyObject, MyDelegate {
fun doWork() {
// Do delegated work.
}
}
var delegates = WeakSet<MyDelegate>()
delegates.addObject(MyClass())
for delegate in delegates {
delegate.doWork()
}
It's not the best solution, because WeakSet
can be initialized with any type, and if this type doesn't conform to AnyObject
protocol then app will crash. But I don't see any better solution right now.