I'm working through Hillegass' book, and it's bringing up delegates. The problem is, it never defines what a delegate is and because of it I can't complete one of the exercises. Can anyone please help?
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macOS delegates?
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Delegates are objects that implement all or part of an 'informal protocol', and attach themselves as the delegate object for something else (see the -delegate and -setDelegate: methods).
Each object that can have a delegate will use it differently, and have a different informal protocol. NSTableView and NSApplication can both have delegates for example, but each one expects its delegate to implement different methods.
If you want to know what delegate methods a particular class supports, you will need to look at the class reference documentation for that class.
Each object that can have a delegate will use it differently, and have a different informal protocol. NSTableView and NSApplication can both have delegates for example, but each one expects its delegate to implement different methods.
If you want to know what delegate methods a particular class supports, you will need to look at the class reference documentation for that class.
It's a way of customizing one of Apple's classes. Basically you make your own object and tell Apple's object about it. Then Apple's object calls yours at certain times, thus *in effect* you have added your code to Apple's object.
In normal OO you would subclass a class to add your code to it. This is just a different way of doing it (a "design pattern") that gives the same effect without the need to subclass.
In normal OO you would subclass a class to add your code to it. This is just a different way of doing it (a "design pattern") that gives the same effect without the need to subclass.
I think he defines what a delegate is, but does so by calling it a "helper class." Then he switches to referring to it as a delegate later on.
Delegates have one advantage, you can have one delegate object for multiple other objects. In some cases, it is useful.