Should allKeys() of an empty CCDictionary return NULL or empty CCArray?

cocos2d-x C++
#1

Currently, if you have an initialized yet empty CCDictionary and call allKeys() on it, it returns NULL. I would expect it to return an empty CCArray, but is that just me? Often I use allKeys() before iterating through the dictionary so it returning NULL means that I have to check it for NULL before my for loop.

CCDictionary *aDict = CCDictionary::create();
CCArray *allkeys = aDict->allKeys();
for (int i = 0; i < allkeys->count(); i++) {  // <-- this line crashes the app because allkeys is NULL, not empty CCArray
    // some code here
}

Changing this to return an empty CCArray may break some existing code, but it seems more forgiving to the programmer. Thoughts?

#2

Hey, thanks for a heads up. Definitely allKeys() of an empty dictionary should return an empty array.
However I doubt this situation will be changed, since ver 3.x is a primary target now, and AFAIK it uses STL containers instead of Obj-C’s substitutes.

#3

According to the github developer branch, which is for 3.0alpha, the dictionary class still has this issue. I’ve submitted a pull request.

#4

We deprecated Dictionary since 3.0beta, we will not continue to maintain these classes.
We suggest you use the new Template Container of which method keys() will return an empty std::vectorstd::string. Thanks.