Objective-C

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Objective-C is a programming language for writing iOS, iPad OS, and macOS apps.

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Programming Languages Resources
This topic area is about the programming languages themselves, not about any specific API or tool. If you have an API question, go to the top level and look for a subtopic for that API. If you have a question about Apple developer tools, start in the Developer Tools & Services topic. For Swift questions: If your question is about the SwiftUI framework, start in UI Frameworks > SwiftUI. If your question is specific to the Swift Playground app, ask over in Developer Tools & Services > Swift Playground If you’re interested in the Swift open source effort — that includes the evolution of the language, the open source tools and libraries, and Swift on non-Apple platforms — check out Swift Forums If your question is about the Swift language, that’s on topic for Programming Languages > Swift, but you might have more luck asking it in Swift Forums > Using Swift. General: Forums topic: Programming Languages Swift: Forums subtopic: Programming Languages > Swift Forums tags: Swift Developer > Swift website Swift Programming Language website The Swift Programming Language documentation Swift Forums website, and specifically Swift Forums > Using Swift Swift Package Index website Concurrency Resources, which covers Swift concurrency How to think properly about binding memory Swift Forums thread Other: Forums subtopic: Programming Languages > Generic Forums tags: Objective-C Programming with Objective-C archived documentation Objective-C Runtime documentation Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
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Oct ’25
[NSWorkspace desktopImageOptionsForScreen:] does not return key "Show on all spaces"
It seems this method is not updated for the new "Show on all Spaces" option in system wallpaper preferences. I encounter this problem because one customer reported that every time my app sets a new wallpaper, this option is turned off. NSDictionary* options = [SHARED_WORKSPACE desktopImageOptionsForScreen:screen]; [SHARED_WORKSPACE setDesktopImageURL:imageFileURL forScreen:screen options:options error:&error]; This can be easily verified by dumping the returned dictionary - which only contains 3 keys. Is this a known bug?
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NSTokenField - How To Tell If I'm Editing an Existing Token in -tokenField:representedObjectForEditingString: ?
I'm trying to use NSTokenField for the first time. So my custom 'representedObject' for a token has additional model data tied to it (not just the editing/display string). I noticed when I edit an existing token, type text, and hit the enter key I get the following delegate callback: - (nullable id)tokenField:(NSTokenField *)tokenField representedObjectForEditingString:(NSString *)editingString; This same delegate method is called when I type a brand new token. Is there a way to distinguish if I'm editing a token vs. creating a new one? My expectation is to be able to do something like this (made up enhancement): - (nullable id)tokenField:(NSTokenField *)tokenField representedObjectForEditingString:(NSString *)editingString atIndex:(NSUInteger)existingTokenIndex { if (existingTokenIndex == NSNotFound) { // Token is new, create a new instance MyTokenObject *newToken = //create and configure. return newToken; } else { // This would update the editing string but wouldn't discard existing data held by the token. MyTokenObject *tokenObj = [self existingTokenAtIndex:existingTokenIndex]; tokenObj.editingString = editingString; return tokenObj; } }
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Xcode 26: The horror of S-L-O-W T-Y-P-I-N-G returns
FB22844728 Xcode 26.5, macOS 26.5, MacStudio M1 64 GB The disaster of S-L-O-W T-Y-P-I-N-G that plagued Xcode several years ago returns. I guess all the ultra-advanced LLM neuroneirowebs still can't advise those at Apple who develop the Xcode app how to provide this uber-exotic, unheard-of functionality: JUST TYPING THE CODE. This disaster doesn't affect all projects, but it does affect the exact one I'm working on, and I need to type a lot of code there. Significant time is already wasted. I performed all the recommended steps like relaunching, restarting, and deleting deprived data with no effect. Hope something can be done about it..
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NSTextView -cleanUpAfterDragOperation Being Called When Dragging Session Is Not Finished
I have an NSTextView subclass and implements drag and drop for custom draggable data, so I override -writablePasteboardTypes and add my own type as described in the header file: // Returns an array of pasteboard types that can be provided from the current selection. Overriders should copy the result from super and add their own new types. @property (readonly, copy) NSArray<NSPasteboardType> *writablePasteboardTypes; Now my textview also accepts the drop. Drag and drop can be used to move the custom data to a different location in the text view's character range. Like grabbing a block of text and moving it. So I accept the drop in -readSelectionFromPasteboard:type: I have a variable I cache at the start of dragging like: _myDraggingItem = // Set at the start of dragging. Then when I accept the drop I just use _myDraggingItem to move it to the drop location in the text view. I don't need to actually serialize the entire object and write it on the pasteboard I can just use _myDraggingItem to move from the source location to destination location. This is local only drag and drop. it works, except when the mouse leaves the text view briefly during the dragging session. This is because I override NSTextView's - (void)cleanUpAfterDragOperation // If you set up persistent state that should go away when the drag operation finishes, you can clean it up here. Such state is usually set up in -dragOperationForDraggingInfo:type:. You should probably never need to call this except to message super in an override. - (void)cleanUpAfterDragOperation; So documentation indicates -cleanUpAfterDragOperation is for clean up after drag operation finishes so I nil out _myDraggingItem here. But -cleanUpAfterDragOperation is getting called from [NSDragDestination _draggingExited]. -draggingExited: means the drag location moved outside the view it does not mean that the dragging session is over. The drag can move back inside the view after briefly exiting, so this isn't a usable place to clean up state tied to the dragging session as the header file indicates. I must override -draggingEnded: instead. If that sounds like a bug let me know.
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6d
LLMs/AGENTS for legacy codebases
Hello there everyone. I've got numerous support projects using old school development. Things from Objective-C to RxSwift and UIKit. I've tried the LLM/Agents and they just destroy the codebase over time, so I have given up. The final straw was trying to get it to fix a POSTCODE validation issue which was using some novel ways to provide validation in place using RxSwift. Has anyone had any luck with these LLMs on Legacy codebases? Would love to hear tips.
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NSMetadataQuery - The Rules For OperationQueue?
I typically avoid NSMetadataQuery because I always found the API to be a bit peculiar but for this feature I'm working on I'm not sure it is worth the effort to implement this functionality in my own way. Plus it seems pretty fast. What I find strange is I set the operationQueue to get notifications off the main thread. But also when I set the queue the system yells at me anytime I make a change to NSMetadataQuery that alters the query. So I found this recommendation (requirement) in the documentation : NSMetadataQuery *query = // Initialize and set up a query [query.operationQueue addOperationWithBlock:^{ [query startQuery]; }]; I find this API design to be odd, but maybe I'm just weird. So there are a bunch of properties that can be changed while the query is already running (predicate etc.) and they implicitly stop/start the query and it seems all these calls need to be routed through the query.operationQueue like above? For example if I change the predicate while the query is already started it seems I have to: [query.operationQueue addOperationWithBlock:^{ query.predicate = predicate; }]; The query already knows its operationQueue. Why does the caller have to plumb these calls through the operation queue manually? -stopQuery does not result in an error/warning when called off the operationQueue but is doing so safe? Or do I have to do: [query.operationQueue addOperationWithBlock:^{ [query stopQuery]; }]; Really what I was expecting was to provide a queue for the notification callbacks. I wasn't expecting to manually have to confine the query to its own queue.
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-startDownloadingUbiquitousItemAtURL:error: and NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey
I'm trying to update the iCloud data handling in our app, and I'm running into an issue with a particular file on one particular device. This file never downloads & I haven't been able to pinpoint what's off about it. Right now we just have 2 iCloud accounts & a handful of devices, so I haven't been able to narrow it down yet, but in most cases, all the cloud files download as expected. However, whether or not the file eventually downloads, the NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey key seems to be completely useless. For the following code: NSError *error = nil; BOOL success = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] startDownloadingUbiquitousItemAtURL:self.fileURL error:&error]; if (!success) { NSLog(@"error downloading %@ : %@", self.fileURL, error); } else { NSDictionary *resourceValues = [self.fileURL resourceValuesForKeys:@[NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey, NSURLUbiquitousItemIsDownloadingKey, NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingErrorKey, NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingStatusKey] error:&error]; if (!error) { NSString *downloadStatus = resourceValues[NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingStatusKey]; bool downloadRequested = [resourceValues[NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey] boolValue]; NSLog(@"download requested: %d", downloadRequested); } // ... } downloadRequested is always false, regardless of whether or not the cloud file eventually downloads. I have 2 questions: is there a way to actually check if a download has been requested for a file? what could be preventing this file from downloading? -startDownloadingUbiquitousItemAtURL:error: doesn't report an error, NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingErrorKey is always nil, and no error is reported in the NSMetadataQuery observer.
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AppKit & State Restoration: Windows Auto Closing On App Quit Breaks State Restoration
I probably should know the answer to this but I don't, so I'll ask. When I enable state restoration and have like three windows open, and I quit the app (via Quit menu, not 'Stop In Xcode') the following happens: -NSApplication calls _closeForTermination on all the windows and this causes state restoration to fail to restore these open windows on next app launch. This behavior is not aligned with the behavior of apps like Mail. If I have two "Viewer Windows" open in Mail and I quit the app, when I relaunch the two viewer windows are restored. I can of course track this and write data to restore for these auto closed window myself but shouldn't there be an easy way to opt in to this behavior?
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After binding to NSBrowser indexPaths the browser assumes I'm using NSBrowserCell and calls unimplemented methods on my NSCell subclass
So after binding to NSBrowser selectionIndexPaths: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/CocoaBindingsRef/BindingsText/NSBrowser.html this causes NSBrowser to do some weird stuff that seems completely unrelated to this particular binding. It starts calling NSBrowserCell methods on my cells but my cell is not a NSBrowserCell. My cell is actually a subclass of NSTextFieldCell. But NSBrowser starts sending setIsLeaf: (which I don't implement). In any case if I implement the -setLeaf: that solves that unrecognized selector, but now my cells don't draw titles. Not sure why binding to selectionIndexPaths causes this behavior? The cell stuff seems unrelated to this particular binding. I am of course using the newer but still pretty old item based APIs... do these bindings only support using NSMatrix? I do set the binding after calling -setCellClass: but makes no difference. I also just tried overriding -setSelectionIndexPaths: but NSBrowser does not use the setter.
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NSCollectionView's 'selection box' freezes if you right-click during dragging
So in NSCollectionView I left click the background and start dragging to make the 'selection box' (is that what we call it?) I have a mouse with separate left and right click buttons (i.e., not an Apple Magic Mouse). Now if I accidentally hit the right click while I'm still dragging the selection box..... the right click context menu shows up in the middle of mouse dragging and the selection box freezes on screen. Besides the visual disruption this sometimes results in weird behavior. Sometimes mouse clicks stop responding for awhile in the window and I gotta click around a bunch of times until I guess the run loop "unclogs." I'm able to reproduce in Finder Icon view so it isn't just me. Steps to Reproduce: A mouse with separate buttons for left and right click. Open Finder window in icon view. Left click the background and start dragging to make the gray selection box. While dragging the mouse as you are selecting click right-click in the middle of the drag. The selection box freezes on screen. Expected Behavior: -Right click event and left mouse drag event normally shouldn't overlap. If left mouse is being dragged the right click event should be blocked. Let me know if this is Feedback worthy.
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May ’26
-applicationDockMenu: method on NSApplicationDelegate doesn't work when attached to debugger
When I add a simple menu to the dock via the NSApplicationDelegate method -applicationDockMenu: and run the app from Xcode it doesn't work. -(NSMenu*)applicationDockMenu:(NSApplication*)sender { NSMenu *dockMenu = [self buildDockMenu]; if (dockMenu != nil) { NSLog(@"Returning dock menu."); return dockMenu; } else { NSLog(@"Not ready to build dock menu"); return nil; } } When I run the app, my main app window shows up but nothing logs out in -applicationDockMenu: until I click outside my app's window (so if I click the desktop background, or a Finder window, or whatever). Then after I click outside my app's main window this logs out: Returning dock menu. The "Not ready to build dock menu" message does not log out. But...when I right click on the dock icon, the menu doesn't show up. But if I stop the app from Xcode and just run it not attached to the debugger, the dock menu does show up. But this makes the debugging/testing situation not ideal.
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Apr ’26
NSOutlineView / NSTableView's Setting lineScroll to a somewhat absurd value of 304 in -tile
So I'm working on adding another component to my app that uses NSOutlineView, as we do in AppKit. There will probably always be less than 25 rows here. One row is much larger than the others. Not sure if any of this matters. What I know is I noticed scrolling it is very jank. It's going way too fast. So I took a peek and see lineScroll is getting is 304 in Interface Builder. Not sure how that happened. I changed it to like 24. Then Interface Builder automatically changes it back to 304. So in -viewDidLoad I just set it: NSScrollView *scrollView = self.outlineView.enclosingScrollView; scrollView.verticalLineScroll = 24.0; scrollView.lineScroll = 24.0; But scrolling still is busted. So I subclass NSScrollView and override the setters. For some reason, NSTableView's -tile method is deciding to change the lineScroll to 304, all on its own. So every time tile is called. line scrolls get reset to 304.
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Apr ’26
AppKit - Legal to Change a View's Frame in -viewDidLayout?
I have (had) a view controller that does a bit of manual layout in a -viewDidLayout override. This was pretty easy to manage - however since introducing NSGlassEffectView into the view hierarchy I sometimes am getting hit with "Unable to simultaneously satisfy constraints" and Appkit would break a constraint to 'recover.' It appears translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints is creating some really weird fixed width and height constraints. Here I wasn't doing any autolayout - just add the glass view and set its frame in -viewDidLayout. At runtime since I do manual layout in -viewDidLayout the frames are fixed and there is no real "error" in my app in practice though I wanted to get rid of the constraint breaking warning being logged because I know Autolayout can be aggressive about 'correctness' who knows if they decide to throw and not catch in the future. In my perfect world I would probably just prefer a view.doesManualLayout = YES here - the subviews are big containers no labels so localization is not an issue for me. Rather than playing with autoresizing masks to get better translated constraints I decided to set translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints to NO and make the constraints myself. Now I get hit with the following exception: "The window has been marked as needing another Layout Window pass, but it has already had more Layout Window passes than there are views in the window" So this happens because the view which now has constraints -- I adjusted the frame of it one point in -viewDidLayout. My question is - is not legal to make changes in -viewDidLayout - which seems like the AppKit version of -viewDidLayoutSubviews. In UIKit I always thought it was fine to make changes in -viewDidLayoutSubviews to frames - even if constraints were used - this is a place where you could override things in complex layouts that cannot be easily described in constraints. But in AppKit if you touch certain frames in -viewDidLayout it can now cause this exception (also related: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/806471) I will change the constant of one of the constraints to account for the 1 point adjustment but my question still stands - is it not legal to touch frames in -viewDidLayout when autolayout constraints are used on that subview? It is (or at least was if I remember correctly) permitted to change the layout in -viewDidLayoutSubviews in UIKit but AppKit seems to be more aggressive in its checking for layout correctness). What about calling -sizeToFit on a control in viewDidLayout or some method that has side effect of invalidating layout in a non obvious way, is doing things like this now 'dangerous?' Shouldn't AppKit just block the layout from being invalidated from within -viewDidLayout - and leave whatever the layout is as is when viewDidLayout returns (thus making -viewDidLayout a useful place to override layout in the rare cases where you need a sledgehammer?)
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Apr ’26
NSFileWrapper data loss bug in Foundation on macOS Tahoe 26.4.1
There appears to be a data loss bug in NSFileWrapper on macOS 26.4. It may have been around longer but I just never noticed ... So I write a RTFD file wrapper: NSFileWrapper *rtfd = [attributedString RTFDFileWrapperFromRange:NSMakeRange(0, attributedString.length) documentAttributes:@{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute:NSRTFDTextDocumentType}]; Now IF I use -writeToURL:options:originalContentsURL:error: without using the NSFileWrapperWritingAtomic option and I pass in an existing URL, the followings happens: -The method returns NO and populates the NSError with NSFileWriteFileExistsError, as expected. This is what I want. -BUT the existing file is nuked. It just disappears. Foundation kills it. Poof. Another thing I gotta workaround. Getting pretty ridiculous, I must say. Just my lucky day I guess. It would be wonderful if I could work on my own features and fixing my own bugs.
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Apr ’26
Document Based App - NSDocumentController Opening the Wrong NSDocument/Window Controller on Tahoe 26.4
I have a Document based app. It supports different document types. One document type my app supports conforms to another document type that my app also supports. In my app these two UTIs are designated to open different NSDocument subclasses / window controllers. So say we have these two UTIs: com.DocumentType.SuperType com.DocumentType.SubType. Now I just noticed on Tahoe 26.4, the system is launching my app using NSDocument/window controller that is designated for com.DocumentType.SuperType, when I double click a file with the com.DocumentType.SubType UTI. I haven't changed the NSDocument configuration in many years but it looks like something changed recently.
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Apr ’26
Layout recursion error message
Hi all, when I launch my macOS app from Xcode 16 on ARM64, appKit logs me this error on the debug console: It's not legal to call -layoutSubtreeIfNeeded on a view which is already being laid out. If you are implementing the view's -layout method, you can call -[super layout] instead. Break on _NSDetectedLayoutRecursion(void) to debug. This will be logged only once. This may break in the future. _NSDetectedLayoutRecursion doesn't help a lot, giving me these assembly codes from a call to a subclassed window method that looks like this: -(void) setFrame:(NSRect)frameRect display:(BOOL)flag { if (!_frameLocked) [super setFrame:frameRect display:flag]; } I have no direct call to -layoutSubtreeIfNeeded from a -layout implementation in my codes. I have a few calls to this method from update methods, however even if I comment all of them, the error is still logged... Finally, apart from that log, I cannot observe any layout error when running the program. So I wonder if this error can be safely ignored? Thanks!
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Apr ’26
macOS Tahoe 26.3 - System Is Playing NSBeep At Inappropriate Times When Text Editing Ends Via -cancelOperation: (field editor)
When I end editing pressing the escape key, the system sometimes plays NSBeep(). I noticed this with NSBrowser. Every time I press escape to end editing the system beeps. At first I thought it was somewhere in my app but I set a symbolic breakpoint and discovered it was not coming from my code. I filed FB22127038. Since then I discovered that NSBeep playing at inappropriate times is not exclusive to NSBrowser. It appears if there is a NSTableView in the window and you just press the escape key (even if you aren't editing anything) AppKit beeps. It can be traced to: #0 0x0000000199e3184c in NSBeep () #1 0x000000019aa03fac in -[NSWindow doCommandBySelector:] () #2 0x000000019ac1d01c in -[NSTableView(NSTableViewViewBased) cancelOperation:] ()
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Apr ’26
NSURL - is it intended behavior for -URLByAppendingPathComponent: to allow appending multiple path components in one call?
The documentation for NSURL -URLByAppendingPathComponent: states: "Returns a new URL by appending a path component to the original URL." Path component is singular. But this "works" : NSURL *testURL = [applicationsDirectory URLByAppendingPathComponent:@"Evil/../../" isDirectory:YES]; So my questions are: One) Was it always this way? I can't recall if it was like this before the Foundation rewrite and I just never stumbled across? and Two) Is it intended behavior? The API seems to suggest that you append one path component on the url with this method. But I guess you can append as many as you want?
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Mar ’26
NSBrowser -deselectAll: broken on macOS Tahoe 26.4
So if I have a selection in NSBrowser. I hit Option+Command+A to invoke "Deselect" the selection in the parent for the last column drops its selections, as expected. But the column doesn't drop off the browser. The delegate method (void)browser:(NSBrowser *)browser didChangeLastColumn:(NSInteger)oldLastColumn toColumn:(NSInteger)column NS_SWIFT_UI_ACTOR; Never fires (since the column isn't dropped off). But we have. dangling last column with no selection in the previous column. Now if there's enough room for me to deselect by clicking the background, the last column drops off, as expected. This seems to be fairly new? Anyone else experiencing this? These 26point updates seem to keep punching me in the face. And yes. deselect all seems somewhat broken in Column view in the Finder as well, but in a seemingly different way. In Finder it just seems to change the selection color like it deactivated the window but doesn't drop the selection. For me, the selection IS dropped but the column remains visible. Maybe they are using Cocoa bindings or something that resyncs the selection after the mess up. I dk.
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Mar ’26
copyfile Sometimes Fails to copy .DS_Store when Copying a Folder But Does Not Report Usable Error
Testing copyfile on a folder on an external volume (which takes a bit a of time) I'm running into an issue where copyfile gets to the end of the operation and then just fails. In the callback I can see that the failure occurs on a .DS_Store file inside the folder. So for a .DS_Store it is simple enough for me to just ignore the error and return COPYFILE_SKIP but the somewhat more concerning issue here is that the true error reason is seemingly not reported? In the callback if I read errno it is 0. When copyfile returns it returns -1 after I return COPYFILE_QUIT (and errno is 0) so I don't know what the error is or the appropriate way to handle it. For .DS_Store just skipping seems reasonable but when copying a folder it may be appropriate to get the true failure reason. But checking the last path component of source path seems like a hack way to handle errors. If a file in the copying folder with important user data I can't just silently skip it - it isn't clear to me how I should properly proceed in a situation where I can't get the actual reason for the failure.
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Mar ’26
Programming Languages Resources
This topic area is about the programming languages themselves, not about any specific API or tool. If you have an API question, go to the top level and look for a subtopic for that API. If you have a question about Apple developer tools, start in the Developer Tools & Services topic. For Swift questions: If your question is about the SwiftUI framework, start in UI Frameworks > SwiftUI. If your question is specific to the Swift Playground app, ask over in Developer Tools & Services > Swift Playground If you’re interested in the Swift open source effort — that includes the evolution of the language, the open source tools and libraries, and Swift on non-Apple platforms — check out Swift Forums If your question is about the Swift language, that’s on topic for Programming Languages > Swift, but you might have more luck asking it in Swift Forums > Using Swift. General: Forums topic: Programming Languages Swift: Forums subtopic: Programming Languages > Swift Forums tags: Swift Developer > Swift website Swift Programming Language website The Swift Programming Language documentation Swift Forums website, and specifically Swift Forums > Using Swift Swift Package Index website Concurrency Resources, which covers Swift concurrency How to think properly about binding memory Swift Forums thread Other: Forums subtopic: Programming Languages > Generic Forums tags: Objective-C Programming with Objective-C archived documentation Objective-C Runtime documentation Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
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2.6k
Activity
Oct ’25
[NSWorkspace desktopImageOptionsForScreen:] does not return key "Show on all spaces"
It seems this method is not updated for the new "Show on all Spaces" option in system wallpaper preferences. I encounter this problem because one customer reported that every time my app sets a new wallpaper, this option is turned off. NSDictionary* options = [SHARED_WORKSPACE desktopImageOptionsForScreen:screen]; [SHARED_WORKSPACE setDesktopImageURL:imageFileURL forScreen:screen options:options error:&error]; This can be easily verified by dumping the returned dictionary - which only contains 3 keys. Is this a known bug?
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1d
NSTokenField - How To Tell If I'm Editing an Existing Token in -tokenField:representedObjectForEditingString: ?
I'm trying to use NSTokenField for the first time. So my custom 'representedObject' for a token has additional model data tied to it (not just the editing/display string). I noticed when I edit an existing token, type text, and hit the enter key I get the following delegate callback: - (nullable id)tokenField:(NSTokenField *)tokenField representedObjectForEditingString:(NSString *)editingString; This same delegate method is called when I type a brand new token. Is there a way to distinguish if I'm editing a token vs. creating a new one? My expectation is to be able to do something like this (made up enhancement): - (nullable id)tokenField:(NSTokenField *)tokenField representedObjectForEditingString:(NSString *)editingString atIndex:(NSUInteger)existingTokenIndex { if (existingTokenIndex == NSNotFound) { // Token is new, create a new instance MyTokenObject *newToken = //create and configure. return newToken; } else { // This would update the editing string but wouldn't discard existing data held by the token. MyTokenObject *tokenObj = [self existingTokenAtIndex:existingTokenIndex]; tokenObj.editingString = editingString; return tokenObj; } }
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117
Activity
3d
Xcode 26: The horror of S-L-O-W T-Y-P-I-N-G returns
FB22844728 Xcode 26.5, macOS 26.5, MacStudio M1 64 GB The disaster of S-L-O-W T-Y-P-I-N-G that plagued Xcode several years ago returns. I guess all the ultra-advanced LLM neuroneirowebs still can't advise those at Apple who develop the Xcode app how to provide this uber-exotic, unheard-of functionality: JUST TYPING THE CODE. This disaster doesn't affect all projects, but it does affect the exact one I'm working on, and I need to type a lot of code there. Significant time is already wasted. I performed all the recommended steps like relaunching, restarting, and deleting deprived data with no effect. Hope something can be done about it..
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4
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242
Activity
4d
NSTextView -cleanUpAfterDragOperation Being Called When Dragging Session Is Not Finished
I have an NSTextView subclass and implements drag and drop for custom draggable data, so I override -writablePasteboardTypes and add my own type as described in the header file: // Returns an array of pasteboard types that can be provided from the current selection. Overriders should copy the result from super and add their own new types. @property (readonly, copy) NSArray<NSPasteboardType> *writablePasteboardTypes; Now my textview also accepts the drop. Drag and drop can be used to move the custom data to a different location in the text view's character range. Like grabbing a block of text and moving it. So I accept the drop in -readSelectionFromPasteboard:type: I have a variable I cache at the start of dragging like: _myDraggingItem = // Set at the start of dragging. Then when I accept the drop I just use _myDraggingItem to move it to the drop location in the text view. I don't need to actually serialize the entire object and write it on the pasteboard I can just use _myDraggingItem to move from the source location to destination location. This is local only drag and drop. it works, except when the mouse leaves the text view briefly during the dragging session. This is because I override NSTextView's - (void)cleanUpAfterDragOperation // If you set up persistent state that should go away when the drag operation finishes, you can clean it up here. Such state is usually set up in -dragOperationForDraggingInfo:type:. You should probably never need to call this except to message super in an override. - (void)cleanUpAfterDragOperation; So documentation indicates -cleanUpAfterDragOperation is for clean up after drag operation finishes so I nil out _myDraggingItem here. But -cleanUpAfterDragOperation is getting called from [NSDragDestination _draggingExited]. -draggingExited: means the drag location moved outside the view it does not mean that the dragging session is over. The drag can move back inside the view after briefly exiting, so this isn't a usable place to clean up state tied to the dragging session as the header file indicates. I must override -draggingEnded: instead. If that sounds like a bug let me know.
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43
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6d
LLMs/AGENTS for legacy codebases
Hello there everyone. I've got numerous support projects using old school development. Things from Objective-C to RxSwift and UIKit. I've tried the LLM/Agents and they just destroy the codebase over time, so I have given up. The final straw was trying to get it to fix a POSTCODE validation issue which was using some novel ways to provide validation in place using RxSwift. Has anyone had any luck with these LLMs on Legacy codebases? Would love to hear tips.
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1
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245
Activity
2w
NSMetadataQuery - The Rules For OperationQueue?
I typically avoid NSMetadataQuery because I always found the API to be a bit peculiar but for this feature I'm working on I'm not sure it is worth the effort to implement this functionality in my own way. Plus it seems pretty fast. What I find strange is I set the operationQueue to get notifications off the main thread. But also when I set the queue the system yells at me anytime I make a change to NSMetadataQuery that alters the query. So I found this recommendation (requirement) in the documentation : NSMetadataQuery *query = // Initialize and set up a query [query.operationQueue addOperationWithBlock:^{ [query startQuery]; }]; I find this API design to be odd, but maybe I'm just weird. So there are a bunch of properties that can be changed while the query is already running (predicate etc.) and they implicitly stop/start the query and it seems all these calls need to be routed through the query.operationQueue like above? For example if I change the predicate while the query is already started it seems I have to: [query.operationQueue addOperationWithBlock:^{ query.predicate = predicate; }]; The query already knows its operationQueue. Why does the caller have to plumb these calls through the operation queue manually? -stopQuery does not result in an error/warning when called off the operationQueue but is doing so safe? Or do I have to do: [query.operationQueue addOperationWithBlock:^{ [query stopQuery]; }]; Really what I was expecting was to provide a queue for the notification callbacks. I wasn't expecting to manually have to confine the query to its own queue.
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223
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2w
-startDownloadingUbiquitousItemAtURL:error: and NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey
I'm trying to update the iCloud data handling in our app, and I'm running into an issue with a particular file on one particular device. This file never downloads & I haven't been able to pinpoint what's off about it. Right now we just have 2 iCloud accounts & a handful of devices, so I haven't been able to narrow it down yet, but in most cases, all the cloud files download as expected. However, whether or not the file eventually downloads, the NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey key seems to be completely useless. For the following code: NSError *error = nil; BOOL success = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] startDownloadingUbiquitousItemAtURL:self.fileURL error:&error]; if (!success) { NSLog(@"error downloading %@ : %@", self.fileURL, error); } else { NSDictionary *resourceValues = [self.fileURL resourceValuesForKeys:@[NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey, NSURLUbiquitousItemIsDownloadingKey, NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingErrorKey, NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingStatusKey] error:&error]; if (!error) { NSString *downloadStatus = resourceValues[NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingStatusKey]; bool downloadRequested = [resourceValues[NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadRequestedKey] boolValue]; NSLog(@"download requested: %d", downloadRequested); } // ... } downloadRequested is always false, regardless of whether or not the cloud file eventually downloads. I have 2 questions: is there a way to actually check if a download has been requested for a file? what could be preventing this file from downloading? -startDownloadingUbiquitousItemAtURL:error: doesn't report an error, NSURLUbiquitousItemDownloadingErrorKey is always nil, and no error is reported in the NSMetadataQuery observer.
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4
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498
Activity
4w
AppKit & State Restoration: Windows Auto Closing On App Quit Breaks State Restoration
I probably should know the answer to this but I don't, so I'll ask. When I enable state restoration and have like three windows open, and I quit the app (via Quit menu, not 'Stop In Xcode') the following happens: -NSApplication calls _closeForTermination on all the windows and this causes state restoration to fail to restore these open windows on next app launch. This behavior is not aligned with the behavior of apps like Mail. If I have two "Viewer Windows" open in Mail and I quit the app, when I relaunch the two viewer windows are restored. I can of course track this and write data to restore for these auto closed window myself but shouldn't there be an easy way to opt in to this behavior?
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1
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236
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4w
After binding to NSBrowser indexPaths the browser assumes I'm using NSBrowserCell and calls unimplemented methods on my NSCell subclass
So after binding to NSBrowser selectionIndexPaths: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/CocoaBindingsRef/BindingsText/NSBrowser.html this causes NSBrowser to do some weird stuff that seems completely unrelated to this particular binding. It starts calling NSBrowserCell methods on my cells but my cell is not a NSBrowserCell. My cell is actually a subclass of NSTextFieldCell. But NSBrowser starts sending setIsLeaf: (which I don't implement). In any case if I implement the -setLeaf: that solves that unrecognized selector, but now my cells don't draw titles. Not sure why binding to selectionIndexPaths causes this behavior? The cell stuff seems unrelated to this particular binding. I am of course using the newer but still pretty old item based APIs... do these bindings only support using NSMatrix? I do set the binding after calling -setCellClass: but makes no difference. I also just tried overriding -setSelectionIndexPaths: but NSBrowser does not use the setter.
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2
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299
Activity
4w
NSCollectionView's 'selection box' freezes if you right-click during dragging
So in NSCollectionView I left click the background and start dragging to make the 'selection box' (is that what we call it?) I have a mouse with separate left and right click buttons (i.e., not an Apple Magic Mouse). Now if I accidentally hit the right click while I'm still dragging the selection box..... the right click context menu shows up in the middle of mouse dragging and the selection box freezes on screen. Besides the visual disruption this sometimes results in weird behavior. Sometimes mouse clicks stop responding for awhile in the window and I gotta click around a bunch of times until I guess the run loop "unclogs." I'm able to reproduce in Finder Icon view so it isn't just me. Steps to Reproduce: A mouse with separate buttons for left and right click. Open Finder window in icon view. Left click the background and start dragging to make the gray selection box. While dragging the mouse as you are selecting click right-click in the middle of the drag. The selection box freezes on screen. Expected Behavior: -Right click event and left mouse drag event normally shouldn't overlap. If left mouse is being dragged the right click event should be blocked. Let me know if this is Feedback worthy.
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5
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341
Activity
May ’26
-applicationDockMenu: method on NSApplicationDelegate doesn't work when attached to debugger
When I add a simple menu to the dock via the NSApplicationDelegate method -applicationDockMenu: and run the app from Xcode it doesn't work. -(NSMenu*)applicationDockMenu:(NSApplication*)sender { NSMenu *dockMenu = [self buildDockMenu]; if (dockMenu != nil) { NSLog(@"Returning dock menu."); return dockMenu; } else { NSLog(@"Not ready to build dock menu"); return nil; } } When I run the app, my main app window shows up but nothing logs out in -applicationDockMenu: until I click outside my app's window (so if I click the desktop background, or a Finder window, or whatever). Then after I click outside my app's main window this logs out: Returning dock menu. The "Not ready to build dock menu" message does not log out. But...when I right click on the dock icon, the menu doesn't show up. But if I stop the app from Xcode and just run it not attached to the debugger, the dock menu does show up. But this makes the debugging/testing situation not ideal.
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4
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454
Activity
Apr ’26
NSOutlineView / NSTableView's Setting lineScroll to a somewhat absurd value of 304 in -tile
So I'm working on adding another component to my app that uses NSOutlineView, as we do in AppKit. There will probably always be less than 25 rows here. One row is much larger than the others. Not sure if any of this matters. What I know is I noticed scrolling it is very jank. It's going way too fast. So I took a peek and see lineScroll is getting is 304 in Interface Builder. Not sure how that happened. I changed it to like 24. Then Interface Builder automatically changes it back to 304. So in -viewDidLoad I just set it: NSScrollView *scrollView = self.outlineView.enclosingScrollView; scrollView.verticalLineScroll = 24.0; scrollView.lineScroll = 24.0; But scrolling still is busted. So I subclass NSScrollView and override the setters. For some reason, NSTableView's -tile method is deciding to change the lineScroll to 304, all on its own. So every time tile is called. line scrolls get reset to 304.
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1
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421
Activity
Apr ’26
AppKit - Legal to Change a View's Frame in -viewDidLayout?
I have (had) a view controller that does a bit of manual layout in a -viewDidLayout override. This was pretty easy to manage - however since introducing NSGlassEffectView into the view hierarchy I sometimes am getting hit with "Unable to simultaneously satisfy constraints" and Appkit would break a constraint to 'recover.' It appears translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints is creating some really weird fixed width and height constraints. Here I wasn't doing any autolayout - just add the glass view and set its frame in -viewDidLayout. At runtime since I do manual layout in -viewDidLayout the frames are fixed and there is no real "error" in my app in practice though I wanted to get rid of the constraint breaking warning being logged because I know Autolayout can be aggressive about 'correctness' who knows if they decide to throw and not catch in the future. In my perfect world I would probably just prefer a view.doesManualLayout = YES here - the subviews are big containers no labels so localization is not an issue for me. Rather than playing with autoresizing masks to get better translated constraints I decided to set translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints to NO and make the constraints myself. Now I get hit with the following exception: "The window has been marked as needing another Layout Window pass, but it has already had more Layout Window passes than there are views in the window" So this happens because the view which now has constraints -- I adjusted the frame of it one point in -viewDidLayout. My question is - is not legal to make changes in -viewDidLayout - which seems like the AppKit version of -viewDidLayoutSubviews. In UIKit I always thought it was fine to make changes in -viewDidLayoutSubviews to frames - even if constraints were used - this is a place where you could override things in complex layouts that cannot be easily described in constraints. But in AppKit if you touch certain frames in -viewDidLayout it can now cause this exception (also related: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/806471) I will change the constant of one of the constraints to account for the 1 point adjustment but my question still stands - is it not legal to touch frames in -viewDidLayout when autolayout constraints are used on that subview? It is (or at least was if I remember correctly) permitted to change the layout in -viewDidLayoutSubviews in UIKit but AppKit seems to be more aggressive in its checking for layout correctness). What about calling -sizeToFit on a control in viewDidLayout or some method that has side effect of invalidating layout in a non obvious way, is doing things like this now 'dangerous?' Shouldn't AppKit just block the layout from being invalidated from within -viewDidLayout - and leave whatever the layout is as is when viewDidLayout returns (thus making -viewDidLayout a useful place to override layout in the rare cases where you need a sledgehammer?)
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4
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801
Activity
Apr ’26
NSFileWrapper data loss bug in Foundation on macOS Tahoe 26.4.1
There appears to be a data loss bug in NSFileWrapper on macOS 26.4. It may have been around longer but I just never noticed ... So I write a RTFD file wrapper: NSFileWrapper *rtfd = [attributedString RTFDFileWrapperFromRange:NSMakeRange(0, attributedString.length) documentAttributes:@{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute:NSRTFDTextDocumentType}]; Now IF I use -writeToURL:options:originalContentsURL:error: without using the NSFileWrapperWritingAtomic option and I pass in an existing URL, the followings happens: -The method returns NO and populates the NSError with NSFileWriteFileExistsError, as expected. This is what I want. -BUT the existing file is nuked. It just disappears. Foundation kills it. Poof. Another thing I gotta workaround. Getting pretty ridiculous, I must say. Just my lucky day I guess. It would be wonderful if I could work on my own features and fixing my own bugs.
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5
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571
Activity
Apr ’26
Document Based App - NSDocumentController Opening the Wrong NSDocument/Window Controller on Tahoe 26.4
I have a Document based app. It supports different document types. One document type my app supports conforms to another document type that my app also supports. In my app these two UTIs are designated to open different NSDocument subclasses / window controllers. So say we have these two UTIs: com.DocumentType.SuperType com.DocumentType.SubType. Now I just noticed on Tahoe 26.4, the system is launching my app using NSDocument/window controller that is designated for com.DocumentType.SuperType, when I double click a file with the com.DocumentType.SubType UTI. I haven't changed the NSDocument configuration in many years but it looks like something changed recently.
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1
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159
Activity
Apr ’26
Layout recursion error message
Hi all, when I launch my macOS app from Xcode 16 on ARM64, appKit logs me this error on the debug console: It's not legal to call -layoutSubtreeIfNeeded on a view which is already being laid out. If you are implementing the view's -layout method, you can call -[super layout] instead. Break on _NSDetectedLayoutRecursion(void) to debug. This will be logged only once. This may break in the future. _NSDetectedLayoutRecursion doesn't help a lot, giving me these assembly codes from a call to a subclassed window method that looks like this: -(void) setFrame:(NSRect)frameRect display:(BOOL)flag { if (!_frameLocked) [super setFrame:frameRect display:flag]; } I have no direct call to -layoutSubtreeIfNeeded from a -layout implementation in my codes. I have a few calls to this method from update methods, however even if I comment all of them, the error is still logged... Finally, apart from that log, I cannot observe any layout error when running the program. So I wonder if this error can be safely ignored? Thanks!
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10
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920
Activity
Apr ’26
macOS Tahoe 26.3 - System Is Playing NSBeep At Inappropriate Times When Text Editing Ends Via -cancelOperation: (field editor)
When I end editing pressing the escape key, the system sometimes plays NSBeep(). I noticed this with NSBrowser. Every time I press escape to end editing the system beeps. At first I thought it was somewhere in my app but I set a symbolic breakpoint and discovered it was not coming from my code. I filed FB22127038. Since then I discovered that NSBeep playing at inappropriate times is not exclusive to NSBrowser. It appears if there is a NSTableView in the window and you just press the escape key (even if you aren't editing anything) AppKit beeps. It can be traced to: #0 0x0000000199e3184c in NSBeep () #1 0x000000019aa03fac in -[NSWindow doCommandBySelector:] () #2 0x000000019ac1d01c in -[NSTableView(NSTableViewViewBased) cancelOperation:] ()
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4
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220
Activity
Apr ’26
NSURL - is it intended behavior for -URLByAppendingPathComponent: to allow appending multiple path components in one call?
The documentation for NSURL -URLByAppendingPathComponent: states: "Returns a new URL by appending a path component to the original URL." Path component is singular. But this "works" : NSURL *testURL = [applicationsDirectory URLByAppendingPathComponent:@"Evil/../../" isDirectory:YES]; So my questions are: One) Was it always this way? I can't recall if it was like this before the Foundation rewrite and I just never stumbled across? and Two) Is it intended behavior? The API seems to suggest that you append one path component on the url with this method. But I guess you can append as many as you want?
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6
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545
Activity
Mar ’26
NSBrowser -deselectAll: broken on macOS Tahoe 26.4
So if I have a selection in NSBrowser. I hit Option+Command+A to invoke "Deselect" the selection in the parent for the last column drops its selections, as expected. But the column doesn't drop off the browser. The delegate method (void)browser:(NSBrowser *)browser didChangeLastColumn:(NSInteger)oldLastColumn toColumn:(NSInteger)column NS_SWIFT_UI_ACTOR; Never fires (since the column isn't dropped off). But we have. dangling last column with no selection in the previous column. Now if there's enough room for me to deselect by clicking the background, the last column drops off, as expected. This seems to be fairly new? Anyone else experiencing this? These 26point updates seem to keep punching me in the face. And yes. deselect all seems somewhat broken in Column view in the Finder as well, but in a seemingly different way. In Finder it just seems to change the selection color like it deactivated the window but doesn't drop the selection. For me, the selection IS dropped but the column remains visible. Maybe they are using Cocoa bindings or something that resyncs the selection after the mess up. I dk.
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211
Activity
Mar ’26
copyfile Sometimes Fails to copy .DS_Store when Copying a Folder But Does Not Report Usable Error
Testing copyfile on a folder on an external volume (which takes a bit a of time) I'm running into an issue where copyfile gets to the end of the operation and then just fails. In the callback I can see that the failure occurs on a .DS_Store file inside the folder. So for a .DS_Store it is simple enough for me to just ignore the error and return COPYFILE_SKIP but the somewhat more concerning issue here is that the true error reason is seemingly not reported? In the callback if I read errno it is 0. When copyfile returns it returns -1 after I return COPYFILE_QUIT (and errno is 0) so I don't know what the error is or the appropriate way to handle it. For .DS_Store just skipping seems reasonable but when copying a folder it may be appropriate to get the true failure reason. But checking the last path component of source path seems like a hack way to handle errors. If a file in the copying folder with important user data I can't just silently skip it - it isn't clear to me how I should properly proceed in a situation where I can't get the actual reason for the failure.
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6
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486
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Mar ’26