Ytrace 0.2.0

Ytrace 0.2.0

TestsTested
LangLanguage Obj-CObjective C
License MIT
ReleasedLast Release Dec 2014

Maintained by Oliver Letterer.



Ytrace 0.2.0

SPLMessageLogger

License Badge

SPLMessageLogger can intercept and log all objc messages right to your console:

-> <UINavigationBar:0x167a9960>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {384, 42}]
=> void
-> <UIView:0x167b7e40>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {384, 512}]
=> void
-> <UIImageView:0x167c56c0>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {0, 0}]
=> void

Installation

SPLMessageLogger is available through CocoaPods, to install it simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod "SPLMessageLogger"

Usage

SPLMessageLogger can intercept and log all objc messages. It therefore defines the following interface on NSObject

@interface NSObject (SPLMessageLogger)

+ (instancetype)messageLogger;

@end

where the messageLogger records every message it receives and hooks into the runtime to intercept and log these recorded messages. Let's take a look at an example:

@interface SPLView : UIView

- (CGPoint)setCenter:(CGPoint)center atIndex:(NSInteger)index forObject:(id)object;

@end

@implementation SPLView

- (CGPoint)setCenter:(CGPoint)center atIndex:(NSInteger)index forObject:(id)object
{
    [super setCenter:center];
    return self.center;
}

@end

To now intercept and log all messages to -[SPLView setCenter:atIndex:forObject:] and -[UIView setCenter:], simply run

SPLView *firstMessageLogger = [SPLView messageLogger];
[firstMessageLogger setCenter:CGPointZero atIndex:0 forObject:nil];

UIView *secondMessageLogger = [UIView messageLogger];
[secondMessageLogger setCenter:CGPointZero];

At runtime, this can result in the following output

-> <SPLView:0x166c41f0>: -[SPLView setCenter:NSPoint: {0.5, 0.5} atIndex:5 forObject:<ICAppDelegate: 0x166b0570>]
--> <SPLView:0x166c41f0>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {0.5, 0.5}]
==> void
=> NSPoint: {0.5, 0.5}
-> <SPLView:0x166c41f0>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {0.5, 0.5}]
=> void
-> <UINavigationBar:0x167a9960>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {384, 42}]
=> void
-> <UIView:0x167b7e40>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {384, 512}]
=> void
-> <UIImageView:0x167c56c0>: -[UIView setCenter:NSPoint: {0, 0}]
=> void

How it works

Message forwarding

For this library, I have written a custom trampoline (you can read about trampolines here) which can forward any objc message to a new selector.

IMP imp_implementationForwardingToSelector(SEL forwardingSelector, BOOL returnsAStructValue);

Here is an example

IMP forwardingImplementation = imp_implementationForwardingToSelector(@selector(setCenter:), NO);
class_addMethod([UIView class], @selector(thisSetCenterDoesNotExistYet:), forwardingImplementation, typeEndoding);

and suddenly every instance of UIView responds to -[UIView thisSetCenterDoesNotExistYet:] and forwards this message to -[UIView setCenter:]. If you would like some more information about trampolines and maybe a blog post like Writing custom trampolines for beginners and all the pitfalls, hit me up on Twitter.

Runtime hacking

+[NSObject messageLogger] returns an instance of SPLMessageLoggerRecorder which implements -[NSObject methodSignatureForSelector:] and then uses -[NSObject forwardInvocation:] (similar to what UIAppearance is using) as an entry point to hook into the runtime. The runtime hook is probably best explained with the example from above:

SPLView *firstMessageLogger = [SPLView messageLogger];
[firstMessageLogger setCenter:CGPointZero atIndex:0 forObject:nil];

Once firstMessageLogger receives the setCenter:atIndex:forObject: message, it does the following things:

  • Store the original implementation of -[SPLView setCenter:atIndex:forObject:] at the new location -[SPLView __SPLMessageLogger_original_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:]
  • Replace the implementation of -[SPLView setCenter:atIndex:forObject:] with a new implementation obtained by imp_implementationForwardingToSelector which forwards to __SPLMessageLogger_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:.

The trick here is that no instance every is responding to the forwarded -[SPLView __SPLMessageLogger_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:]. In these cases, the objc runtime is asking -[NSObject forwardingTargetForSelector:], which for this selector returns an instance of the actual SPLMessageLogger class. This instance then receives the message __SPLMessageLogger_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:. It implements -[NSObject methodSignatureForSelector:] and then uses -[NSObject forwardInvocation:] to log the invocation and then forwards the invocation back to the original object to the original implementation:

-[SPLView setCenter:] // gets forwarded
↓
-[SPLView __SPLMessageLogger_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:] // no implementation is found
↓
-[SPLView forwardingTargetForSelector:] // return an instance of SPLMessageLogger
↓
-[SPLMessageLogger methodSignatureForSelector:] // lets the runtime construct an invocation
↓
-[SPLMessageLogger forwardInvocation:]
// 1) log the invocation
// 2) forward invocation
↓
--->    `-[SPLView __SPLMessageLogger_original_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:]` // execute original implementation
<---    `-[SPLView __SPLMessageLogger_original_SPLView_setCenter:atIndex:forObject:]`
// 3) log return argument of invocation

Limitations

This approach uses a custom trampoline written in raw assembly which is currently only available on i386, armv7, armv7s and arm64.

Author

Oliver Letterer

License

SPLMessageLogger is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.