Caret in objective C

Question

What does the caret in objective C mean?

ie.

void (^handler)(NSInteger);

It's also worth noting that Blocks are a C extension added by Apple according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocks_(C_language_extension)). — styfle, Aug 25 '11 at 23:50

score 36 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 08 '20 at 18:14

It depends on the context. In the example you show, it's used to denote a Block. The caret symbol is also the bitwise XOR operator in C-based languages — that's what most programmers would identify it as, so it's good to understand that it can be both depending on where it appears, much like *, etc.

And while we're suggesting references, one simply has to include Apple's official Blocks reference.

score 15 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 16 '09 at 04:37

15

The caret represents a block or a closure which carries around or contains the lexical scope. They are similar to blocks in ruby. An excellent reference can be found here.

edited Dec 16 '09 at 04:37

Quinn Taylor

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answered Dec 16 '09 at 03:15

ennuikiller

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Could you give any more detail? – Casebash Dec 16 '09 at 03:20
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added a reference above that should get you started – ennuikiller Dec 16 '09 at 03:22

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 16 '09 at 03:24

Like ennuikiller said, it indicates a block. If you want to learn more, Ars Technica had an excellent in-depth review of Snow Leopard that described not only blocks and closures, but also Grand Central Dispatch and all the other new technologies in Mac OS X 10.6. Highly recommended.

Caret in objective C

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