What should my Objective-C singleton look like? [closed]

Answer 1

A thorough explanation of the Singleton macro code is on the blog Cocoa With Love

http://cocoawithlove.com/2008/11/singletons-appdelegates-and-top-level.html.

Answer 2

Shouln't this be threadsafe and avoid the expensive locking after the first call?

+ (MySingleton*)sharedInstance
{
    if (sharedInstance == nil) {
        @synchronized(self) {
            if (sharedInstance == nil) {
                sharedInstance = [[MySingleton alloc] init];
            }
        }
    }
    return (MySingleton *)sharedInstance;
}

Answer 3

Short answer: Fabulous.

Long answer: Something like....

static SomeSingleton *instance = NULL;

@implementation SomeSingleton

+ (id) instance {
    static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
    dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
        if (instance == NULL){
            instance = [[super allocWithZone:NULL] init];
        }
    });
    return instance;
}

+ (id) allocWithZone:(NSZone *)paramZone {
    return [[self instance] retain];
}

- (id) copyWithZone:(NSZone *)paramZone {
    return self;
}

- (id) autorelease {
    return self;
}

- (NSUInteger) retainCount {
    return NSUIntegerMax;
}

- (id) retain {
    return self;
}

@end

Be sure to read the dispatch/once.h header to understand what's going on. In this case the header comments are more applicable than the docs or man page.

Answer 4

You don't want to synchronize on self... Since the self object doesn't exist yet! You end up locking on a temporary id value. You want to ensure that no one else can run class methods ( sharedInstance, alloc, allocWithZone:, etc ), so you need to synchronize on the class object instead:

@implementation MYSingleton

static MYSingleton * sharedInstance = nil;

+( id )sharedInstance {
    @synchronized( [ MYSingleton class ] ) {
        if( sharedInstance == nil )
            sharedInstance = [ [ MYSingleton alloc ] init ];
    }

    return sharedInstance;
}

+( id )allocWithZone:( NSZone * )zone {
    @synchronized( [ MYSingleton class ] ) {
        if( sharedInstance == nil )
            sharedInstance = [ super allocWithZone:zone ];
    }

    return sharedInstance;
}

-( id )init {
    @synchronized( [ MYSingleton class ] ) {
        self = [ super init ];
        if( self != nil ) {
            // Insert initialization code here
        }

        return self;
    }
}

@end

Answer 5

Edit: This implementation obsoleted with ARC. Please have a look at How do I implement an Objective-C singleton that is compatible with ARC? for correct implementation.

All the implementations of initialize I've read in other answers share a common error.

+ (void) initialize {
  _instance = [[MySingletonClass alloc] init] // <----- Wrong!
}

+ (void) initialize {
  if (self == [MySingletonClass class]){ // <----- Correct!
      _instance = [[MySingletonClass alloc] init] 
  }
}

The Apple documentation recommend you check the class type in your initialize block. Because subclasses call the initialize by default. There exists a non-obvious case where subclasses may be created indirectly through KVO. For if you add the following line in another class:

[[MySingletonClass getInstance] addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"foo" options:0 context:nil]

Objective-C will implicitly create a subclass of MySingletonClass resulting in a second triggering of +initialize.

You may think that you should implicitly check for duplicate initialization in your init block as such:

- (id) init { <----- Wrong!
   if (_instance != nil) {
      // Some hack
   }
   else {
      // Do stuff
   }
  return self;
}

But you will shoot yourself in the foot; or worse give another developer the opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot.

- (id) init { <----- Correct!
   NSAssert(_instance == nil, @"Duplication initialization of singleton");
   self = [super init];
   if (self){
      // Do stuff
   }
   return self;
}

TL;DR, here's my implementation

@implementation MySingletonClass
static MySingletonClass * _instance;
+ (void) initialize {
   if (self == [MySingletonClass class]){
      _instance = [[MySingletonClass alloc] init];
   }
}

- (id) init {
   ZAssert (_instance == nil, @"Duplication initialization of singleton");
   self = [super init];
   if (self) {
      // Initialization
   }
   return self;
}

+ (id) getInstance {
   return _instance;
}
@end

(Replace ZAssert with our own assertion macro; or just NSAssert.)

Answer 6

static MyClass *sharedInst = nil;

+ (id)sharedInstance
{
    @synchronize( self ) {
        if ( sharedInst == nil ) {
            /* sharedInst set up in init */
            [[self alloc] init];
        }
    }
    return sharedInst;
}

- (id)init
{
    if ( sharedInst != nil ) {
        [NSException raise:NSInternalInconsistencyException
            format:@"[%@ %@] cannot be called; use +[%@ %@] instead"],
            NSStringFromClass([self class]), NSStringFromSelector(_cmd), 
            NSStringFromClass([self class]),
            NSStringFromSelector(@selector(sharedInstance)"];
    } else if ( self = [super init] ) {
        sharedInst = self;
        /* Whatever class specific here */
    }
    return sharedInst;
}

/* These probably do nothing in
   a GC app.  Keeps singleton
   as an actual singleton in a
   non CG app
*/
- (NSUInteger)retainCount
{
    return NSUIntegerMax;
}

- (oneway void)release
{
}

- (id)retain
{
    return sharedInst;
}

- (id)autorelease
{
    return sharedInst;
}