Does using lists of structs make sense in cocoa?

Question

This question has spawned out of this one. Working with lists of structs in cocoa is not simple. Either use NSArray and encode/decode, or use a C type array and lose the com

Answer 1

Cocoa has a few common types that are structs, not objects: NSPoint, NSRect, NSRange (and their CG counterparts).

When in doubt, follow Cocoa's lead. If you find yourself dealing with a large number of small, mostly-data objects, you might want to make them structs instead for efficiency.

Using NSArray/NSMutableArray as the top-level container, and wrapping the structs in an NSValue will probably make your life a lot easier. I would only go to a straight C-type array if you find NSArray to be a performance bottleneck, or possibly if the array is essentially read-only.