instancetype is a special type that can be returned from an Objective-C method. It specifies that the return is an object of the same type as the receiving class. In some cases, the compiler promotes an id return to an instancetype: For instance, despite the definition of [[NSString alloc] init], the compiler knows that it returns an NSString.
When?
This is straight from Clang Language Extensions:
- the first word is “alloc” or “new”, and the method is a class method, or
- the first word is “autorelease”, “init”, “retain”, or “self”, and the method is an instance method.
Left unsaid is whether it’s better to actually specify instancetype for these rather than rely on automatic promotion of id. Most code I’ve seen relies on the automatic promotion. I’m not sure what combination this is of momentum, readability, compatibility and convention. I’ve kept to using id in these cases, but that’s mostly due to momentum.
However, you should certainly use instancetype if you want to specify that an instance of the receiving class is returned in cases where autopromotion doesn’t occur, such as a convenience factory.
For example, in this case:
MyObject *bar = [MyObject objectWithParameter: foo];…you would want MyObject to specify that objectWithParameter returns an instancetype rather than an id.
See also:
- Mattt Thompson: instancetype.