Re: Is +[NSMutableArray initialize] completely implemented?

[David Ayers]

Kazunobu Kuriyama wrote:
> Though this seems to be a dated document, gcc/objc/README of GCC's 
> source tells
>
> <quote>
> +initialize
> ===========
>
> This method, if defined, is called before any other instance or class 
> methods of
> that particular class.  This method is not inherited, and is thus not 
> called as
> initializer for a subclass that doesn't define it itself.  Thus, each 
> +initialize
> method is called once (or never if no methods of that particular class 
> is never
> called).
> Besides this, it is allowed ot have several +initialize methods, one for 
> each
> category.  The order in which these (multiple methods) are called is not 
> well
> defined.  I am not completely certain what the semantics of this methods is
> for other implementations, but this is how it works for GNU Objective C.
> <unquote>

Ahh!  Thanks, that's probably where I had read it and was later confused 
to find that it doesn't work that way.  AFAIK the Apple/NeXT runtimes 
also don't call +initialize per category.  So I think the comment needs 
to be fixed.

> Is there anyone who knows further?  Is there a formal document of GNU's 
> ObjC
> runtime?

I haven't seen or heard of any in depth documentation on the GNU ObjC 
Runtime, but I'd be willing to contribute if someone (maybe one of our 
new libobjc maintainers :-) ) takes the lead.

Cheers,
David