storing struct as value using CFDictionarySetValue() - c++

Question

Iam new to using Core Foundations. I want to use dictionary to store some key value pair. The value must be a pointer to a struct. This pointer is pointing to dynamically allocated buffer.
CFMutableDictionaryRef init_hash_table() {
return CFDictionaryCreateMutable(NULL, 0, &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks, &kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks);
}
This is used to create the dictionary and the return value is stored as global variable.
CFNumberRef
create_hash_key(int sd) {
return CFNumberCreate(NULL, kCFNumberIntType, &sd);
}
int
add_hash_entry(CFMutableDictionaryRef dict, int sd, void *pkt) {
CFNumberRef key = create_hash_key(sd);
CFDictionarySetValue(dict, key, pkt);
return 0;
}
When I execute this code, I get segfault. I see that pkt has a valid address and key seems to be created. Does anyone know how to assign a pointer to value part?
Program received signal EXC_BAD_ACCESS, Could not access memory.
Reason: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at address: 0x0000000000000011
0x00007fff8c9f339f in objc_msgSend_fixup ()
Any ideas?

Answer 1

The problem is the kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks argument. From the documentation:
kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks
Predefined CFDictionaryValueCallBacks structure containing a set of
callbacks appropriate for use when the values in a CFDictionary are
all CFType-derived objects.
So in your case, CFRetain() is called on the pointer when the value is added to the
dictionary. This causes the crash because the pointer does not point to a CoreFoundation
object.
You can create the dictionary with
CFDictionaryCreateMutable(NULL, 0, &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks, NULL);
instead, so that no "reference counting" will be done on the value.
Alternatively, you can wrap the pointer into a CFDataRef and put that into the
dictionary.
In both cases it is your responsibility that the pointer is still valid
when the value is retrieved from the dictionary later.
Here is a simple example how you could implement refcounting for your custom objects:
typedef struct {
int refcount;
int val;
} mystruct;
const void *myretain(CFAllocatorRef allocator, const void *value)
{
mystruct *p = (mystruct *)value;
p->refcount++;
return p;
}
void myrelease(CFAllocatorRef allocator, const void *value)
{
mystruct *p = (mystruct *)value;
if (p->refcount == 1)
free(p);
else
p->refcount--;
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[])
{
mystruct *p = malloc(sizeof(*p));
p->refcount = 1;
p->val = 13;
CFDictionaryValueCallBacks vcb = { 0 , myretain, myrelease, NULL, NULL };
CFMutableDictionaryRef dict = CFDictionaryCreateMutable(NULL, 0, &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks, &vcb);
int sd = 13;
CFNumberRef key = CFNumberCreate(NULL, kCFNumberIntType, &sd);
CFDictionarySetValue(dict, key, p);
// refcount == 2
myrelease(NULL, p);
// refcount == 1
mystruct *q = CFDictionaryGetValue(dict, key);
// refcount is still 1, "GetValue" does not increment the refcount
CFRelease(dict);
// object is deallocated
return 0;
}