Success and Error Callbacks in Objective-C: a Refactoring

I’m refactoring code of Calendar Paste 2 some more. Since I like what I learned using Swift so much, one of today’s changes was about making a view controller method do less by factoring object creation and error handling into its collaborators.

The resulting code handles far less of the action involved. Instead, it delegates the action to a new command-like object. And instead of querying an event template for data and assembling an actual event with start and end dates, it delegates event creation to the template itself. Tell, Don’t Ask saved the day.

Here’s the old code for using an event template and paste it into a calendar:

- (void)paste:(id)sender
{
    EKEventStore *eventStore = self.shift.eventStore;
    EKEvent *event           = [self.shift event];

    event.allDay = [self.shift isAllDay];

    event.startDate = self.startDate;
    event.endDate   = [self endDate];

    NSError *error = nil;

    BOOL success = [eventStore saveEvent:event span:EKSpanThisEvent commit:YES error:&error];
    NSAssert(success, @"saving the event failed: %@", error);

    if (success)
    {
        if ([self.shift isAllDay] == NO)
        {
            [self.shift setLastPaste:self.startDate];
            [self.shiftTemplateController saveManagedObjectContext];
        }
    
        [self performSegueWithIdentifier:kSegueUnwindPasted sender:sender];
    }
    else
    {
        [self performSegueWithIdentifier:kSegueUnwindCancelPasting sender:sender];
    }
}

It already uses segues, but it’s still reaching deep into shift to access the eventStore and save the actual event.

The shift itself isn’t too well-factored at the moment. I don’t want to put saving actual events into event stores in there as well. But the shift has knowledge about all necessary parts, so it’s only natural to create a factory on it:

- (PreparedEvent *)preparedEventWithStartDate:(NSDate *)startDate 
                                      endDate:(NSDate *)endDate;

I create PreparedEvent to hold on to the event and eventStore, both of which are known to a shift. Then it wraps the saving command with callbacks:

- (void)saveCompletionHandler:(void (^)())successCallback 
                      onError:(void (^)(NSError *))errorCallback
{
    EKEventStore *eventStore = self.eventStore;
    EKEvent *event = self.event;

    NSError *error = nil;
    BOOL success = [eventStore saveEvent:event span:EKSpanThisEvent commit:YES error:&error];
    NSAssert(success, @"saving the event failed: %@", error);

    if (success) {
        successCallback();
    } else {
        errorCallback(error);
    }
}

That’s making ShiftAssignmentViewController -paste: way leaner:

- (void)paste:(id)sender
{
    ShiftTemplate *shift = self.shift;
    NSDate *startDate = self.startDate;
    NSDate *endDate = self.endDate;

    PreparedEvent *event = [shift preparedEventWithStartDate:startDate endDate:endDate];

    [event saveCompletionHandler:^{
        if ([shift isAllDay] == NO)
        {
            [shift setLastPaste:self.startDate];
            [self.shiftTemplateController saveManagedObjectContext];
        }
    
        [self performSegueWithIdentifier:kSegueUnwindPasted sender:sender];
    } onError: ^(NSError *error){
        [self performSegueWithIdentifier:kSegueUnwindCancelPasting sender:sender];
    }];
}

Both a success and error callback in a single method call don’t read too well in Objective-C, but I prefer this to the back-and-forth I had before.

Have you used a similar pattern in your code? Or do you stick to inout NSError parameters?