Issue passing object to NSMutableArray in AppDelegate - ios

Question

I'm having trouble making a shopping cart sort-of concept in my app. I have my AppDelegate (named ST2AppDelegate) that contains an NSMutableArray called myCart. I want RecipeViewController.m to pass an NSString object to myCart, but every time I pass it the NSString and use NSLog to reveal the contents of the array, it is always empty.
Can anyone please tell me what I am doing wrong? I have worked on this code for days, and there is a line of code in which I don't understand at all what's going on (in the RecipeViewController.m, labeled as such).
Any help would be so appreciated... I'm just a beginner. Here are the relevant classes:
ST2AppDelegate.h:
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#interface ST2AppDelegate : UIResponder <UIApplicationDelegate>
#property (strong, nonatomic) UIWindow *window;
#property (strong, nonatomic) NSMutableArray* myCart;
- (void)addToCart:(NSString*)item;
- (void)readCartContents;
#end
ST2AppDelegate.m:
#import "ST2AppDelegate.h"
#implementation ST2AppDelegate
#synthesize myCart;
// all the 'applicationDid...' methods...
- (void)addToCart:(NSString *)item
{
[self.myCart addObject:item];
}
- (void)readCartContents
{
NSLog(#"Contents of cart: ");
int count = [myCart count];
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
NSLog(#"%#", myCart[count]);
}
}
#end
RecipeDetailViewController.h:
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "ST2AppDelegate.h"
#interface RecipeDetailViewController : UIViewController
#property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UILabel* recipeLabel;
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSString* recipeName;
#property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UIButton* orderNowButton;
- (IBAction)orderNowButtonPress:(id)sender;
#end
RecipeDetailViewController.m:
#import "RecipeDetailViewController.h"
#implementation RecipeDetailViewController
#synthesize recipeName;
#synthesize orderNowButton;
// irrelevant methods...
- (IBAction)orderNowButtonPress:(id)sender
{
// alter selected state
[orderNowButton setSelected:YES];
NSString* addedToCartString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# added to cart!",recipeName];
[orderNowButton setTitle:addedToCartString forState:UIControlStateSelected];
// show an alert
NSString* addedToCartAlertMessage = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# has been added to your cart.", recipeName];
UIAlertView* addedToCartAlert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:#"Cart Updated" message:addedToCartAlertMessage delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:#"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil, nil];
[addedToCartAlert show];
// add to cart (I don't understand this, but it works)
[((ST2AppDelegate*)[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate) addToCart:recipeName];
// read cart contents
[((ST2AppDelegate*)[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate) readCartContents];
}
#end

Answer 1

You need to initialize myCart when your application launches:
self.myCart = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
otherwise you are just attempting to add objects to a nil object which while it won't throw an exception because of the way objective-c handles nil objects it will not function as expected until you initialize it.

Answer 2

Do you ever initalize the shopping cart variable?
Try doing lazy instantiation.
-(NSMutableArray *) myCart{
if (!_myCart){
_myCart = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
}
return _myCart;
}
This way you will know it will always get allocated. Basically, this method makes it so that whenever someone calls your classes version of the object it checks to see if that object has been allocated and then allocates it if it has not. It's a common paradigm that you should employ with most of your objects.
This method should go in the app delegate (where the object was declared).