Add notification observer to custom class

Question

I am new to Objective-C and I’m having trouble adding a notification observer. I have a class CoreDataStack that’s a subclass of NSObject. I am trying to add notification observers for iCloud sync but I keep getting compiler errors. Code sense is not picking up on NSNotificationCenter. As far as I know there isn’t anything extra I need to import. I must be missing something really obvious.

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                         selector:@selector(persistentStoreCoordinatorStoresDidChange:)
                                             name:NSPersistentStoreCoordinatorStoresDidChangeNotification
                                           object:self.persistentStoreCoordinator];

- (void)persistentStoreCoordinatorStoresDidChange:(NSNotification*)notification {
    NSLog(@"persistentStoreDidImportUbiquitousContentChanges");
}

Here are the errors it's giving me:

• Missing '[' at start of message send expression
• Use of undeclared identifier 'self'
• Expected identifier or '('

Answer 1

Your string [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver... is written correctly but you have to put it inside some method, not to the top level as it is now.

For example this method can be put inside your AppDelegate:

#import <CoreData/CoreData.h>

@interface AppDelegate ()

@property (nonatomic) NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *persistentStoreCoordinator;
...
@end

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
    // Initialize self.persistentStoreCoordinator somehow....
    // ...

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                             selector:@selector(persistentStoreCoordinatorStoresDidChange:)
                                                 name:NSPersistentStoreCoordinatorStoresDidChangeNotification
                                               object:self.persistentStoreCoordinator];

    return YES;
}

- (void)persistentStoreCoordinatorStoresDidChange:(NSNotification*)notification {
    NSLog(@"persistentStoreDidImportUbiquitousContentChanges");
}

Of course any other class will also work, just make that string [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver... to be a part of some executable method.