FastCoding

The FastCoding category on NSObject reduces the amount of code developers have to write to archive properties defined on their classes. By utilizing the convenience methods FastCoding provides while implementing initWithCoder: and encodeWithCoder:, repetitive code that looks like this:

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder {
	self = [super init];
	if (self) {
		self.name = [aDecoder decodeObjectForKey:@"name"];
		self.size = [aDecoder decodeSizeForKey:@"size"];
		self.color = [aDecoder decodeObjectForKey:@"color"];
	}
	return self;
}

- (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aCoder {
	[aCoder encodeObject:name forKey:@"name"];
	[aCoder encodeSize:size forKey:@"size"];
	[aCoder encodeObject:color forKey:@"color"];
}

... can quickly be turned into this:

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder {
	self = [super init];
	if (self) {
		[self decodePropertiesWithCoder:aDecoder];
	}
	return self;
}

- (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aCoder {
	[self encodePropertiesWithCoder:aCoder];
}

To use FastCoding on projects targeting Mac OS X 10.7 or later, simply copy the NSObject+FastCoding.[hm] files over to your Xcode project. Earlier releases of Mac OS X are currently unsupported. The FastCoding Xcode project includes unit tests which can be run to discern regressions. Additionally, all of FastCoding's functionality takes advantage of Objective-C's dynamic runtime.