#define macros and xcode warning and lack of code hinting

Question

I wrote up some small macros to help in setting application-wide font styles, colors and gradients. The issue is that xcode is throwing warnings whenever I use the color or font defined in the macro. Is there any way to get xcode to validate the macro, and hopefully get code hinting as well?

#define HEX_COLOR(colorname, hexcolor) \
\
@implementation UIColor(Style##colorname) \
\
+ (UIColor*) colorname \
{ \
    static UIColor * staticColor = nil; \
    if(! staticColor) { \
        float red   = ((hexcolor & 0xFF0000) >> 16)/255.0; \
        float green = ((hexcolor & 0xFF00) >> 8)/255.0; \
        float blue  = (hexcolor & 0xFF)/255.0; \
        float alpha = (hexcolor >> 24)/255.0; \
        \
        staticColor = [[UIColor colorWithRed:red \
                                       green:green \
                                        blue:blue \
                                       alpha:alpha] retain]; \
    } \
    return  staticColor; \
} \
@end

In my app delegate i set the application-wide fonts and colors like this:

HEX_COLOR(specialGreenColor, 0x66BAD455);
.....

This line throws the warning that the property might not exist.

[[UIColor specialGreenColor] set];

Also I do not want to lessen the error reporting in xcode as not seeing warning is a backwards step. I just would like to find a way to regiester the marco with xcode.

Answer 1

If you want to define constants, you should use #define like so:

#define COLOUR_NAME 0x66BAD455

Then, the preprocessor will go through your file and replace all instances of COLOUR_NAME verbatim with 0x66BAD455.

There are arguably better ways to define application-wide constants though.

Edit: there's also this nice post which seems to provide a better implementation of what you're going for. You can define the macro and then define your colour constants using the question linked above.

Answer 2

Code hinting for the marco works in xCode 4.2