Contents

NSCountedSet

A mutable, unordered collection of distinct objects that may appear more than once in the collection.

Declaration

class NSCountedSet

Overview

Each distinct object inserted into an NSCountedSet object has a counter associated with it. NSCountedSet keeps track of the number of times objects are inserted and requires that objects be removed the same number of times. Thus, there is only one instance of an object in an NSSet object even if the object has been added to the set multiple times. The count method defined by the superclass NSSet has special significance; it returns the number of distinct objects, not the total number of times objects are represented in the set. The NSSet and NSMutableSet classes are provided for static and dynamic sets, respectively, whose elements are distinct.

While NSCountedSet and CFBag are not toll-free bridged, they provide similar functionality. For more information about CFBag, see the CFBag.

Subclassing Notes

Because NSCountedSet is not a class cluster, it does not have primitive methods that provide the basis for its implementation. In general, there should be little need for subclassing.

Methods to Override

If you subclass NSCountedSet, you must override any method of which you want to change the behavior.

If you change the primitive behavior of an NSCountedSet, for instance if you change how objects are stored, you must override all of the affected methods. These include:

If you change the primitive behavior, you must also override the primitive methods of NSSet and NSMutableSet.

Topics

Initializing a Counted Set

Adding and Removing Entries

Examining a Counted Set

See Also

Specialized Sets