Cocoa bindings can be a little confusing, especially to newcomers. Once you have an understanding of the underlying concepts, bindings aren’t too hard. In this article, I’m going to explain the concepts behind bindings from the ground up; first explaining Key-Value Coding (KVC), then Key-Value Observing (KVO), and finally explaining how Cocoa bindings are built on top of KVC and KVO.

Key-Value Coding (KVC)

The first concept you need to understand is Key-Value Coding (KVC), as KVO and bindings are built on top of it.

Objects have certain “properties”. For example, a Person object may have an name property and an address property. In KVC parlance, the Person object has a value for the name key, and for the address key. “Keys” are just strings, and “values” can be any type of object[1]. At it’s most fundamental level, KVC is just two methods: a method to change the value for a given key (mutator), and a method to retrieve the value for a given key (accessor). Here is an example:

void ChangeName(Person* p, NSString* newName)
{
    //using the KVC accessor (getter) method
    NSString* originalName = [p valueForKey:@"name"];

    //using the KVC mutator (setter) method.
    [p setValue:newName forKey:@"name"];

    NSLog(@"Changed %@'s name to: %@", originalName, newName);
}

Now let’s say the Person object has a third key: a spouse key. The value for the spouse key is another Person object. KVC allows you to do things like this:

void LogMarriage(Person* p)
{
    //just using the accessor again, same as example above
    NSString* personsName = [p valueForKey:@"name"];

    //this line is different, because it is using
    //a "key path" instead of a normal "key"
    NSString* spousesName = [p valueForKeyPath:@"spouse.name"];

    NSLog(@"%@ is happily married to %@", personsName, spousesName);
}

Cocoa makes a distinction between “keys” and “key paths”. A “key” allows you to get a value on an object. A “key path” allows you to chain multiple keys together, separated by dots. For example, this…

[p valueForKeyPath:@"spouse.name"];

… is exactly the same as this…

[[p valueForKey:@"spouse"] valueForKey:@"name"];

That’s all you need to know about KVC for now.

Let’s move on to KVO.

Key-Value Observing (KVO)

Key-Value Observing (KVO) is built on top of KVC. It allows you to observe (i.e. watch) a KVC key path on an object to see when the value changes. For example, let’s write some code that watches to see if a person’s address changes. There are three methods of interest in the following code:

  • watchPersonForChangeOfAddress: begins the observing
  • observeValueForKeyPath:ofObject:change:context: is called every time there is a change in the value of the observed key path
  • dealloc stops the observing
static NSString* const KVO_CONTEXT_ADDRESS_CHANGED = @"KVO_CONTEXT_ADDRESS_CHANGED"

@implementation PersonWatcher 

-(void) watchPersonForChangeOfAddress:(Person*)p;
{
    //this begins the observing
    [p addObserver:self 
        forKeyPath:@"address" 
           options:0 
           context:KVO_CONTEXT_ADDRESS_CHANGED];

    //keep a record of all the people being observed,
    //because we need to stop observing them in dealloc
    [m_observedPeople addObject:p];
}

//whenever an observed key path changes, this method will be called
- (void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath 
                      ofObject:(id)object 
                        change:(NSDictionary *)change 
                       context:(void *)context;
{
    //use the context to make sure this is a change in the address,
    //because we may also be observing other things 
    if(context == KVO_CONTEXT_ADDRESS_CHANGED){
        NSString* name = [object valueForKey:@"name"];
        NSString* address = [object valueForKey:@"address"];
        NSLog(@"%@ has a new address: %@", name, address);
    }    
}

-(void) dealloc;
{
    //must stop observing everything before this object is
    //deallocated, otherwise it will cause crashes
    for(Person* p in m_observedPeople){
        [p removeObserver:self forKeyPath:@"address"];
    }
    [m_observedPeople release]; m_observedPeople = nil;
    [super dealloc];
}

-(id) init;
{
    if(self = [super init]){
        m_observedPeople = [NSMutableArray new];
    }
    return self;
}

@end

This is all that KVO does. It allows you to observe a key path on an object to get notified whenever the value changes.

Cocoa Bindings

Now that you understand the concepts behind KVC and KVO, Cocoa bindings won’t be too mysterious.

Cocoa bindings allow you to synchronise two key paths[2] so they have the same value. When one key path is updated, so is the other one.

For example, let’s say you have a Person object and an NSTextField to edit the person’s address. We know that every Person object has an address key, and thanks to the Cocoa Bindings Reference, we also know that every NSTextField object has a value key that works with bindings. What we want is for those two key paths to be synchronised (i.e. bound). This means that if the user types in the NSTextField, it automatically updates the address on the Person object. Also, if we programmatically change the the address of the Person object, we want it to automatically appear in the NSTextField. This can be achieved like so:

void BindTextFieldToPersonsAddress(NSTextField* tf, Person* p)
{
    //This synchronises/binds these two together:
    //The `value` key on the object `tf`
    //The `address` key on the object `p`
    [tf bind:@"value" toObject:p withKeyPath:@"address" options:nil];
}

What happens under the hood is that the NSTextField starts observing the address key on the Person object via KVO. If the address changes on the Person object, the NSTextField gets notified of this change, and it will update itself with the new value. In this situation, the NSTextField does something similar to this:

- (void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath 
                      ofObject:(id)object 
                        change:(NSDictionary *)change 
                       context:(void *)context;
{
    if(context == KVO_CONTEXT_VALUE_BINDING_CHANGED){
        [self setStringValue:[object valueForKeyPath:keyPath]];
    }    
}

When the user starts typing into the NSTextField, the NSTextField uses KVC to update the Person object. In this situation, the NSTextField does something similar to this:

- (void)insertText:(id)aString;
{
    NSString* newValue = [[self stringValue] stringByAppendingString:aString];
    [self setStringValue:newValue];
    
    //if "value" is bound, then propagate the change to the bound object
    if([self infoForBinding:@"value"]){
        id boundObj = ...; //omitted for brevity
        NSString* boundKeyPath = ...; //omitted for brevity
        [boundObj setValue:newValue forKeyPath:boundKeyPath];
    }
}

For a more complete look at how views propagate changes back to the bound object, see my article: Implementing Your Own Cocoa Bindings.

Conclusion

That’s the basics of how KVC, KVO and bindings work. The views use KVC to update the model, and they use KVO to watch for changes in the model. I have left out quite a bit of detail in order to keep the article short and simple, but hopefully it has given you a firm grasp of the concepts and principles.

Footnotes

[1] KVC values can also be primitives such as BOOL or int, because the KVC accessor and mutator methods will perform auto-boxing. For example, a BOOL value will be auto-boxed into an NSNumber*.

[2] When I say that bindings synchronise two key paths, that’s not technically correct. It actually synchronises a “binding” and a key path. A “binding” is a string just like a key path but it’s not guaranteed to be KVC compatible, although it can be. Notice that the example code uses @"address" as a key path but never uses @"value" as a key path. This is because @"value" is a binding, and it might not be a valid key path.