iphone - When does an associated object get released?

Question

I'm attaching object B via associative reference to object A. Object B observes some properties of object A through KVO.

The problem is that object B seems to be deallocated after object A, meaning its too late to remove itself as a KVO observer of object A. I know this because I'm getting NSKVODeallocateBreak exceptions, followed by EXEC_BAD_ACCESS crashes in object B's dealloc.

Does anyone know why object B is deallocated after object A with OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN? Do associated objects get released after deallocation? Do they get autoreleased? Does anyone know of a way to alter this behavior?

I'm trying to add some things to a class through categories, so I can't override any existing methods (including dealloc), and I don't particularly want to mess with swizzling. I need some way to de-associate and release object B before object A gets deallocated.

EDIT - Here is the code I'm trying to get working. If the associated objects were released prior to UIImageView being completely deallocated, this would all work. The only solution I'm seeing is to swizzle in my own dealloc method, and swizzle back the original in order to call up to it. That gets really messy though.

The point of the ZSPropertyWatcher class is that KVO requires a standard callback method, and I don't want to replace UIImageView's, in case it uses one itself.

UIImageView+Loading.h

@interface UIImageView (ZSShowLoading)
@property (nonatomic)   BOOL    showLoadingSpinner;
@end

UIImageView+Loading.m

@implementation UIImageView (ZSShowLoading)

#define UIIMAGEVIEW_SPINNER_TAG 862353453
static char imageWatcherKey;
static char frameWatcherKey;

- (void)zsShowSpinner:(BOOL)show {
    if (show) {
        UIActivityIndicatorView *spinnerView = (UIActivityIndicatorView *)[self viewWithTag:UIIMAGEVIEW_SPINNER_TAG];
        if (!spinnerView) {
            spinnerView = [[[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhiteLarge] autorelease];
            spinnerView.tag = UIIMAGEVIEW_SPINNER_TAG;
            [self addSubview:spinnerView];
            [spinnerView startAnimating];
        }

        [spinnerView setEvenCenter:self.boundsCenter];
    } else {
        [[self viewWithTag:UIIMAGEVIEW_SPINNER_TAG] removeFromSuperview];
    }
}

- (void)zsFrameChanged {
    [self zsShowSpinner:!self.image];
}

- (void)zsImageChanged {
    [self zsShowSpinner:!self.image];
}

- (BOOL)showLoadingSpinner {
    ZSPropertyWatcher *imageWatcher = (ZSPropertyWatcher *)objc_getAssociatedObject(self, &imageWatcherKey);
    return imageWatcher != nil;
}

- (void)setShowLoadingSpinner:(BOOL)aBool {
    ZSPropertyWatcher *imageWatcher = nil;
    ZSPropertyWatcher *frameWatcher = nil;

    if (aBool) {
        imageWatcher = [[[ZSPropertyWatcher alloc] initWithObject:self keyPath:@"image" delegate:self callback:@selector(zsImageChanged)] autorelease];
        frameWatcher = [[[ZSPropertyWatcher alloc] initWithObject:self keyPath:@"frame" delegate:self callback:@selector(zsFrameChanged)] autorelease];

        [self zsShowSpinner:!self.image];
    } else {
        // Remove the spinner
        [self zsShowSpinner:NO];
    }

    objc_setAssociatedObject(
        self,
        &imageWatcherKey,
        imageWatcher,
        OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN
    );

    objc_setAssociatedObject(
        self,
        &frameWatcherKey,
        frameWatcher,
        OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN
    );
}

@end

ZSPropertyWatcher.h

@interface ZSPropertyWatcher : NSObject {
    id          delegate;
    SEL         delegateCallback;

    NSObject    *observedObject;
    NSString    *keyPath;
}

@property (nonatomic, assign)   id      delegate;
@property (nonatomic, assign)   SEL     delegateCallback;

- (id)initWithObject:(NSObject *)anObject keyPath:(NSString *)aKeyPath delegate:(id)aDelegate callback:(SEL)aSelector;

@end

ZSPropertyWatcher.m

@interface ZSPropertyWatcher ()

@property (nonatomic, assign)   NSObject    *observedObject;
@property (nonatomic, copy)     NSString    *keyPath;

@end

@implementation ZSPropertyWatcher

@synthesize delegate, delegateCallback;
@synthesize observedObject, keyPath;

- (id)initWithObject:(NSObject *)anObject keyPath:(NSString *)aKeyPath delegate:(id)aDelegate callback:(SEL)aSelector {
    if (!anObject || !aKeyPath) {
        // pre-conditions
        self = nil;
        return self;
    }

    self = [super init];
    if (self) {
        observedObject = anObject;
        keyPath = aKeyPath;
        delegate = aDelegate;
        delegateCallback = aSelector;

        [observedObject addObserver:self forKeyPath:keyPath options:0 context:nil];
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)dealloc {
    [observedObject removeObserver:self forKeyPath:keyPath];

    [keyPath release];

    [super dealloc];
}

- (void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context {
    [self.delegate performSelector:self.delegateCallback];
}

@end

Answer 1

Even larger than your -dealloc issue is this:

UIKit is not KVO-compliant

No effort has been made to make UIKit classes key-value observable. If any of them are, it is entirely coincidental and is subject to break at Apple's whim. And yes, I work for Apple on the UIKit framework.

This means that you're going to have to find another way to do this, probably by changing your view layouting slightly.