Objective-C: blocks v NSNotificationCenter [closed]

Question

Are blocks a better alternative to a NSNotificationCenter?

Answer 1

(Block)Just like Ajax...

<...>
[self.client postPath:@"/getMeSomething" paramenters:params
    success:^(Response *response) {
            <success work>
    }
    failure:(^Response *response) {
            <fail work>
    }
];
<....>

NSNotification (more controversial if you ask me)

TableController.m
<...>
[NSNotification addObserver:self selector:(refreshDisplay) name:@"Model Refreshed"]
<...>
-(void)refreshDisplay { work }
<...>

MyDataModel.m
<...>
   <many model updates>
   [NSNotification .. postNotificationName:@"Model Refreshed"]
<...>

Answer 2

Blocks are an alternative to NSNotificationCenter in the same way that the space shuttle is an alternative to kittens. They do completely different things.

Notification Centers offer a central place to publish and subscribe to notifications, decoupling the posters from the listeners. The code that is executed in response to receiving a notification from the NSNotificationCenter class can be a method on an object or a block.

Blocks are—unfortunately, as far as clarity goes—blocks in the old-fashioned sense of C code that capture their surrounding state. Like function pointers, block pointers can be captured as variables and the code in the block executed later by using the () operator.

One way in which you could conceivably use blocks instead of notifications is to implement a callback API in the form of completion handlers. You could have a method declared like this:

typedef void(^CompletionBlockType)(id result);
- (void)doSomethingExpensiveWithCompletion: (CompletionBlockType)result;

This is a good idea when exactly one object needs to know when the task has completed, and has exactly one thing to do in response. If you need more objects to be informed about the event, you should probably post a notification. If there are multiple code paths to execute (for example, different success or failure cases) you should consider a delegate object, with different methods for each of the cases.