responds(to:)

Return Value 戻り値

true if the receiver implements or inherits a method that can respond to aSelector, otherwise false.

Discussion 解説

The application is responsible for determining whether a false response should be considered an error.

You cannot test whether an object inherits a method from its superclass by sending responds(to:) to the object using the super keyword. This method will still be testing the object as a whole, not just the superclass’s implementation. Therefore, sending responds(to:) to super is equivalent to sending it to self. Instead, you must invoke the NSObject class method instancesRespond(to:) directly on the object’s superclass, as illustrated in the following code fragment.

if( [MySuperclass instancesRespondToSelector:@selector(aMethod)] ) {
    // invoke the inherited method
    [super aMethod];
}

You cannot simply use [[self superclass] instancesRespondToSelector:@selector(aMethod)] since this may cause the method to fail if it is invoked by a subclass.

Note that if the receiver is able to forward aSelector messages to another object, it will be able to respond to the message, albeit indirectly, even though this method returns false.