inessential by Brent Simmons

IBAction vs. void

This issue came up in private correspondence. Should you always use IBAction for actions? Is there some advantage to using void instead? Or the other way around?

Here’s my thinking:

I use IBAction for the sole case where the action is directly wired up in Interface Builder. It’s a reminder that there’s a xib or storyboard and this action is called directly with this target.

Otherwise I use void.

In both cases I put the actions in a #pragma mark - Actions section of the code. And I always use the form - (void)someAction:(id)sender. (That is, I always include sender, which is a further clue that it’s an action method.)

Also, I almost never wire up actions to an explicit target in Interface Builder. Instead I use the responder chain, even on iOS apps — meaning that I wire actions to First Responder. (If you’re an iOS developer and you’re not up on the responder chain, you’re missing out. It’s important.)

This has the effect of making IBAction pretty rare in my code. It doesn’t appear at all in the current shipping version of Vesper.

Update 4 p.m.

Some unstated things, and a good reason to use IBAction:

I don’t use IB that much (though I’m trying to fix that, when possible). But when I do, I add a method to First Responder, then wire up the action to First Responder.

However, if I already had an action method with the IBAction macro, then I could wire it up to First Responder without having to add the method in IB. Totally true. (And that’s a good reason to disagree with me.)

Here’s why I do it this way: I usually do IB first, code second. There may not be an action method or even a view controller when I’m in IB. Since I usually do things this way (when I do use IB), it makes sense to me to always do it the same way.

Another reason is that because I don’t use IB that often, most of the time when I’m setting up actions I’m doing so programatically, with a nil target and a selector. There’s absolutely no need for IBAction when doing it this way, and I’m far out of the habit of using it.

In the end, my main reason is still the important one: I like to use IBAction as an indicator that an action is explicitly wired to this specific target. It doesn’t have to mean that, but I like it to mean that.

But you may agree with Wil Shipley:

Seems like a lot of work to avoid IBAction.