NSUserDefaults and primitive data types?

Question

What is the point of the NSUserDefaults methods such as -setFloat:forKey: and -floatForKey: when -registerDefaults: accepts only a NSDictionary which can't hold any primitive data types - only objects.

Instead it seems I have to use -setObject:forKey and -objectForKey: and store only NSNumber objects if I want to be able to give my floats any actual default values.

What am I missing here?

Answer 1

setFloat: is just a convenience method that creates an NSNumber and then passes that to setObject: . floatForKey: does the reverse.

NSDictionary can only hold object types, so you need to wrap primitives in the appropriate objects. So yes, you do need to do what you are doing to set up the default defaults.

It would be nice if you could use those methods directly on an NSDictionary, that would be a pretty trivial category to write.