48 @abstract A collection class whose instances maintain a list of object references. Objects in the collection are acquired with unique associative keys.
50 An instance of OSDictionary is a mutable container which contains a list of OSMetaClassBase derived object references and these objects are identified and acquired by unique associative keys. When an object is placed into a dictionary, a unique identifier or key must provided to identify the object within the collection. The key then must be provided to find the object within the collection. If an object is not found within the collection, a 0 is returned. Placing an object into a dictionary for a key, which already identifies an object within that dictionary, will replace the current object with the new object.
52 Objects placed into a dictionary are automatically retained and objects removed or replaced are automatically released. All objects are released when the collection is freed.
92 @param count The number of items to be placed into the dictionary.
93 @param capacity The initial storage capacity of the dictionary object. If 0, the capacity will be set to the size of 'count', else this value must be greater or equal to 'count'.
94 @result Returns an instance of OSDictionary or 0 on failure.
105 @param count The number of items to be placed into the dictionary.
106 @param capacity The initial storage capacity of the dictionary object. If 0, the capacity will be set to the size of 'count', else this value must be greater or equal to 'count'.
107 @result Returns an instance of OSDictionary or 0 on failure.
115 @abstract A static constructor function to create and initialize an instance of OSDictionary and populate it with objects from another dictionary.
116 @param dict A dictionary whose contents will be placed in the new instance.
117 @param capacity The initial storage capacity of the dictionary object. If 0, the capacity will be set to the number of elements in the dictionary object, else the capacity must be greater than or equal to the number of elements in the dictionary.
118 @result Returns an instance of OSDictionary or 0 on failure.
132 @abstract A member function to initialize an instance of OSDictionary and populate it with the provided objects and keys.
133 @param objects A static array of OSMetaClassBase derived objects to be placed into the dictionary.
134 @param keys A static array of OSSymbol keys which identify the corresponding objects provided in the 'objects' parameter.
135 @param count The number of objects provided to the dictionary.
136 @param capacity The initial storage capacity of the dictionary object. If 0, the capacity will be set to the size of 'count', else the capacity must be greater than or equal to the value of 'count'.
137 @result Returns true if initialization succeeded or false on failure.
145 @abstract A member function to initialize an instance of OSDictionary and populate it with the provided objects and keys.
146 @param objects A static array of OSMetaClassBase derived objects to be placed into the dictionary.
147 @param keys A static array of OSString keys which identify the corresponding objects provided in the 'objects' parameter.
148 @param count The number of objects provided to the dictionary.
149 @param capacity The initial storage capacity of the dictionary object. If 0, the capacity will be set to the size of 'count', else the capacity must be greater than or equal to the value of 'count'.
150 @result Returns true if initialization succeeded or false on failure.
158 @abstract A member function to initialize an instance of OSDictionary and populate it with the contents of another dictionary.
159 @param dict The dictionary containing the objects to be used to populate the receiving dictionary.
160 @param capacity The initial storage capacity of the dictionary. If 0, the value of capacity will be set to the number of elements in the dictionary object, else the value of capacity must be greater than or equal to the number of elements in the dictionary object.
161 @result Returns true if initialization succeeded or false on failure.
257 @abstract A member function which merges the contents of a dictionary into the receiver.
258 @param aDictionary The dictionary whose contents are to be merged with the receiver.
259 @result Returns true if the merger is successful, false otherwise.
260 @discussion If there are keys in 'aDictionary' which match keys in the receiving dictionary, then the objects in the receiver are replaced by those from 'aDictionary', the replaced objects are released.
328 @abstract Do a deep copy of this dictionary and its collections.
329 @discussion This function copies this dictionary and all included collections recursively. Objects that don't derive from OSContainter are NOT copied, that is objects like OSString and OSData.
330 @param cycleDict Is a dictionary of all of the collections that have been, to start the copy at the top level just leave this field 0.
331 @result The newly copied collecton or 0 if insufficient memory