@optional is a compile-time directive.  It means that objects that conform to 
your protocol don't *have* to implement the method when the code is compiled.  
However, it has nothing to do with runtime-verification.  That is up to you (so 
yes, you should be using respondsToSelector:).

If you didn't have the @optional directive, the call to respondsToSelector: 
would be unnecessary.

Dave

On Jan 5, 2010, at 11:53 AM, John Michael Zorko wrote:

> 
> Hello, all ...
> 
> After [re-]reading the Apple documentation, i'm still not clear as to what 
> @optional really does in a @protocol. I thought that declaring certain 
> messages as @optional would make the app not crash if a certain message 
> didn't have an implementation in a class that adopts the protocol, however 
> i'm finding that this isn't the case:
> 
> 2010-01-05 10:40:58.698 VoxityNowPlaying[14413:207] *** Terminating app due 
> to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** 
> -[VoxityNowPlayingViewController playerURLFinished:]: unrecognized selector 
> sent to instance 0x39138f0'
> 
> ... yet my protocol is defined thusly:
> 
> @protocol VoxityPlayerDelegate <NSObject>
> 
> @optional
> 
> - (void)playerURLFinished:(NSURL *)url;
> 
> .
> .
> .
> 
> @end
> 
> Do I need to wrap code that sends messages to delegates with 
> -respondsToSelector? If so, what is the point of @optional in the protocol?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> John

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