UIButton with action-selector method in different class - ios

Question

Related to this previous question (Creating UI elements programmatically in Objective-C), this method resides in one class of the project, and other classes are able to call it to programmatically create buttons:
UIButton *createButton(CGFloat x, CGFloat y, CGFloat width, CGFloat height, NSString *caption, NSTextAlignmentCenter textPosition, UIColor *textColor, UIColor *backColor) {
UIButton *control = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(x, y, width, height)];
[control setTitle:caption forState:UIControlStateNormal];
control.titleLabel.textAlignment = textPosition;
control.backgroundColor = backColor;
[control setTitleColor: textColor forState:UIControlStateNormal];
return control;
}
I am now trying to add the target and action methods, to be handled by a common function, like so:
[control addTarget:nil
action:#selector(commonHandler)
forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchDown];
It works for buttons that reside in the same class as the createButton() function, but although the buttons are successfully created in the other classes as well, they don't trigger the commonHandler() method.
NOTE: the createButton() and commonHandler() methods have been declared in its header file, and imported by all classes.
Is there any way to achieve this?
EDIT: The proposed solution still crashes
I modified the code as per the suggestions, and converted both the createButton and buttonAction to Objective-C methods, to enable reference to self.
class1 header
// class1.h
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "class2.h"
#interface class1 : UIViewController {
UIButton *button1;
}
- (void) buttonAction:(UIButton *)control;
- (UIButton *) createButtonWithxPos:(CGFloat)x
yPos:(CGFloat)y
width:(CGFloat)width
height:(CGFloat)height
caption:(NSString *)caption
textPos:(NSTextAlignment)textPosition
textClr:(UIColor *)textColor
backClr:(UIColor *)backColor;
#end
class1 implementation
// class1.m
#import "class1.h"
#import "class2.h"
#implementation class1
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
button1 = [self createButtonWithxPos:10
yPos:10
width:200
height:30
caption:#"Cls1 Button"
textPos:NSTextAlignmentCenter
textClr:[UIColor whiteColor]
backClr:[UIColor blackColor]];
[self.view addSubview: button1];
}
- (UIButton *) createButtonWithxPos:(CGFloat)x
yPos:(CGFloat)y
width:(CGFloat)width
height:(CGFloat)height
caption:(NSString *)caption
textPos:(NSTextAlignment)textPosition
textClr:(UIColor *)textColor
backClr:(UIColor *)backColor
{
UIButton *control = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(x, y, width, height)];
[control setTitle:caption forState:UIControlStateNormal];
control.titleLabel.textAlignment = textPosition;
control.backgroundColor = backColor;
[control setTitleColor: textColor forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[control addTarget:self action: #selector(buttonAction:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchDown];
return control;
}
- (void) buttonAction:(UIButton *)control {
NSLog(#"button clicked...");
}
#end
class2 header
// class2.h
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#interface class2 : UIViewController {
UIButton *button2;
}
#end
class2 implementation
// class2.m
#import "class1.h"
#import "class2.h"
#implementation class2
- (void) viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
class1 *cls1 = [[class1 alloc] init];
button2 = [cls1 createButtonWithxPos:10
yPos:10
width:200
height:30
caption:#"Cls2 Button"
textPos:NSTextAlignmentCenter
textClr:[UIColor whiteColor]
backClr:[UIColor blackColor]];
[self.view addSubview: button2];
}
#end
Both button1 and button2 are created properly, but button1 triggers the buttonAction method while button2 does not - it crashes on touch.
Is it implemented wrongly?
(please excuse any omissions as I have only extracted the relevant portions from the actual project to illustrate here)