When does layoutSubviews get called?

It’s important to optimize any UIView layoutSubviews method you create, as it can be frequently called, and has the potential for creating recursion (triggering a setNeedsLayout from layoutSubviews can create a loop that will grossly affect your apps performance). Layout subviews is called once per run loop on any view that has had setNeedsLayout or setNeedsDisplayWithRect: called on it. So in addition to any time you manually call these methods, it can be useful to know when the UI framework calls setNeedsLayout/setNeedsDisplay as this will trigger layoutSubviews.

For this purpose, I will define a few view relationships:

• View1 – UIView class, root view for examples
• View1.1 – UIScrollView class, subview of View1
• View1.1.1 – UIView class, subview of View1.1 (No autoresize mask)
• View1.1.2 – UIView class, another subview of View1.1 (Autoresize mask – flexible width)

I then ran the following tests.  An X means the view was layed out

From this I surmise the following:

• init does not cause layoutSubviews to be called (duh)
• addSubview causes layoutSubviews to be called on the view being added, the view it’s being added to (target view), and all the subviews of the target view
• setFrame intelligently calls layoutSubviews on the view having it’s frame set only if the size parameter of the frame is different
• scrolling a UIScrollView causes layoutSubviews to be called on the scrollView, and it’s superview
• rotating a device only calls layoutSubview on the parent view (the responding viewControllers primary view)
• removeFromSuperview – layoutSubviews is called on superview only (not show in table)

Hopefully this is helpful information for you as well.

Blocks Rock – A Cocoa Asynchronous NSURLConnection block example

So I heard that blocks were one of the new features of 4.1 and I decided to give it a try. And it’s awesome! Within half an hour I’d solved a problem that I’d had to make much more complicated implementations to solve previously, and I’m so excited I decided I’d share the code.

Problem: NSURLConnection asynchronous connections are ugly. If you want to have one controller make multiple different calls you have to make unique delegates for each call or have some convoluted way for the connection manager to tell one delegate from another. It’s a real mess.

Solution: BLOCKS!

Step 1: Create NSURLConnection block extension that allows for calling async methods from class API like you would sync method.

//
//  NSURLConnection-block.h
//
//  Created by Kevin Lohman on 9/12/10.
//  Copyright 2010 Logic High Software. All rights reserved.
//  Free to use in your code commercial or otherwise, as long as you leave this comment block in
// http://blog.logichigh.com/2010/09/12/cocoa-blocks/

#import 

@interface NSURLConnection (block)
#pragma mark Class API Extensions
+ (void)asyncRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request success:(void(^)(NSData *,NSURLResponse *))successBlock_ failure:(void(^)(NSData *,NSError *))failureBlock_;
@end

and

#import "NSURLConnection-block.h"

@implementation NSURLConnection (block)

#pragma mark API
+ (void)asyncRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request success:(void(^)(NSData *,NSURLResponse *))successBlock_ failure:(void(^)(NSData *,NSError *))failureBlock_
{
	[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:@selector(backgroundSync:) toTarget:[NSURLConnection class]
						   withObject:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
									   request,@"request",
									   successBlock_,@"success",
									   failureBlock_,@"failure",
									   nil]];
}

#pragma mark Private
+ (void)backgroundSync:(NSDictionary *)dictionary
{
	NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
	void(^success)(NSData *,NSURLResponse *) = [dictionary objectForKey:@"success"];
	void(^failure)(NSData *,NSError *) = [dictionary objectForKey:@"failure"];
	NSURLRequest *request = [dictionary objectForKey:@"request"];
	NSURLResponse *response = nil;
	NSError *error = nil;
	NSData *data = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:&response error:&error];
	if(error)
	{
		failure(data,error);
	}
	else
	{
		success(data,response);
	}
	[pool release];
}


@end

Now just import your new class and make your async call! AWESOME!

	[NSURLConnection asyncRequest:request
						  success:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response) {
							  NSLog(@"Success!");
						  }
						  failure:^(NSData *data, NSError *error) {
							  NSLog(@"Error! %@",[error localizedDescription]);
						  }];

Validating an e-mail address

Question: How do I verify if a string of characters is a valid e-mail address?

First, you can only be sure about the second half of the e-mail address (the domain), as (in order to protect the anonymity of their users) many e-mail servers don’t give immediate responses when checked to see if the first part of the e-mail address is valid (although some will send a bounce notification at a later date, once an e-mail has been attempted).

Second, you can only TRULY verify if the domain address is accurate if the testing application has internet access.

So, without making a DNS call (or before), you can’t be absolutely sure that the user or the domain actually exists, and can never be sure if the user (and therefore the email) is an actual e-mail address.

But you can check to see if the format is valid using a regular expression. And this is where things get REALLY tricky, as how restrictive you want to be in your filtering depends on you, and while there is a defined standard, simply adhering to that standard may exclude e-mail addresses that are in use.

It seems that the most common regular expression that is suggest on the web is the following:

^[A-Z0-9a-z._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}$

This will cover ALMOST all e-mail address you will run into, and will exclude obnoxious e-mails like badpirate@gmail.com.nospam

However, it will exclude a few e-mail addresses that are in use (but are probably being excluded and having trouble in lots of places:

• kevin@yesthistldexists.museum – Yes .museum is a valid Top Level Domain
• kevin@kevin@logichigh.com – Yes the current e-mail RFC doesn’t allow this type of e-mail address HOWEVER older RFC’s did, and so there may be some folks still using this format (and not being able to use this format in lots of other places)
• ??@??web.jp – International characters in domains and user names are already being normalized to ascii friendly code by browsers and e-mail clients, so they are being used regularly, however if you are checking before that normalization occurs, these sorts of e-mail addresses will get tossed

Therefore, I’ve also written a super lax e-mail format checker that will catch all scenarios. This reg ex would probably be best used if you plan on checking to see if the domain exists after checking to see if the format loosely matches SOME format that COULD be in use

^.+@.+\.[A-Za-z]{2}[A-Za-z]*$

Finally, if you’d like to implement this in cocoa code:

BOOL NSStringIsValidEmail(NSString *checkString)
{
	NString *stricterFilterString = @"[A-Z0-9a-z._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}"; 
	NSString *laxString = @".+@.+\.[A-Za-z]{2}[A-Za-z]*";
	NSString *emailRegex = stricterFilter ? stricterFilterString : laxString;
	NSPredicate *emailTest = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF MATCHES %@", emailRegex];
	return [emailTest evaluateWithObject:checkString];
}

UIImage fix

If you aren’t interested in Objective C Cocoa development for the iPhone… read on.

The problems:

• UIImage provides no easy way to scale, rotate or transform the underlying CGImage.  While it is easy to transform it by placing the image in a view, if you need the actual image changed then good luck.
• UIImageJPEGRepresentation(), the easiest (only?) way to convert a UIImage to a JPEG uses the underlying CGImage, and ignores your UIImage imageOrientation, so regardless of camera position when the picture was taken the exported JPEG will always be oriented in landscape or right mode, ending up with pictures that need rotation.

The solution:  Thanks to some help in the Apple Support forums, and the #iphonedev IRC chat groups, I was able to clean up a function that takes a UIImage, and fixes it’s underlying core image.

Update: The “Forever” setting on Pastebin doesn’t seem to be so forever… but still lots of interest in this fix, so enjoy below:

UIImage *scaleAndRotateImage(UIImage *image)
{
    int kMaxResolution = 320; // Or whatever

    CGImageRef imgRef = image.CGImage;

    CGFloat width = CGImageGetWidth(imgRef);
    CGFloat height = CGImageGetHeight(imgRef);

    CGAffineTransform transform = CGAffineTransformIdentity;
    CGRect bounds = CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height);
    if (width > kMaxResolution || height > kMaxResolution) {
        CGFloat ratio = width/height;
        if (ratio > 1) {
            bounds.size.width = kMaxResolution;
            bounds.size.height = bounds.size.width / ratio;
        }
        else {
            bounds.size.height = kMaxResolution;
            bounds.size.width = bounds.size.height * ratio;
        }
    }

    CGFloat scaleRatio = bounds.size.width / width;
    CGSize imageSize = CGSizeMake(CGImageGetWidth(imgRef), CGImageGetHeight(imgRef));
    CGFloat boundHeight;
    UIImageOrientation orient = image.imageOrientation;
    switch(orient) {

        case UIImageOrientationUp: //EXIF = 1
            transform = CGAffineTransformIdentity;
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationUpMirrored: //EXIF = 2
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(imageSize.width, 0.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformScale(transform, -1.0, 1.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationDown: //EXIF = 3
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(imageSize.width, imageSize.height);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, M_PI);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationDownMirrored: //EXIF = 4
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0.0, imageSize.height);
            transform = CGAffineTransformScale(transform, 1.0, -1.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationLeftMirrored: //EXIF = 5
            boundHeight = bounds.size.height;
            bounds.size.height = bounds.size.width;
            bounds.size.width = boundHeight;
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(imageSize.height, imageSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformScale(transform, -1.0, 1.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, 3.0 * M_PI / 2.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationLeft: //EXIF = 6
            boundHeight = bounds.size.height;
            bounds.size.height = bounds.size.width;
            bounds.size.width = boundHeight;
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0.0, imageSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, 3.0 * M_PI / 2.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationRightMirrored: //EXIF = 7
            boundHeight = bounds.size.height;
            bounds.size.height = bounds.size.width;
            bounds.size.width = boundHeight;
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(-1.0, 1.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, M_PI / 2.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationRight: //EXIF = 8
            boundHeight = bounds.size.height;
            bounds.size.height = bounds.size.width;
            bounds.size.width = boundHeight;
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(imageSize.height, 0.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, M_PI / 2.0);
            break;

        default:
            [NSException raise:NSInternalInconsistencyException format:@"Invalid image orientation"];

    }

    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(bounds.size);

    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();

    if (orient == UIImageOrientationRight || orient == UIImageOrientationLeft) {
        CGContextScaleCTM(context, -scaleRatio, scaleRatio);
        CGContextTranslateCTM(context, -height, 0);
    }
    else {
        CGContextScaleCTM(context, scaleRatio, -scaleRatio);
        CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0, -height);
    }

    CGContextConcatCTM(context, transform);

    CGContextDrawImage(UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height), imgRef);
    UIImage *imageCopy = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    return imageCopy;
}