Open Radar

 
Summary:
Whereas the Carbon AEMSendMessage function takes a timeout value in ticks, the new -[NSAppleEventDescriptor sendEventWithOptions:timeout:error:] method (rdar://19169736) accepts a timeout value in seconds (NSTimeInterval). 

This is not a problem when the timeout is an arbitrary non-negative float (e.g. 30.0 = 30 seconds). However, it fails to work correctly when one of the standard timeout constants - kAEDefaultTimeout, kNoTimeOut - is given. AEDataModel.h defines these constants as follows:

/* Constants for timeout durations */
enum {
  kAEDefaultTimeout             = -1,   /* timeout value determined by AEM */
  kNoTimeOut                    = -2    /* wait until reply comes back, however long it takes */
};

It appears that the current sendEvent... implementation converts the given timeout-in-seconds to ticks by multiplying by 60 then casting to long, but fails to treat negative floats as a special case.

The simplest solution would be to modify the method implementation so that negative timeout values are not multiplied but are simply cast to long as-is, thus ensuring the existing constants continue to work as expected. For example (https://bitbucket.org/hhas/appleeventbridge/src/7995324fde315eb830c669f2b1a4c7b8dd069614/AppleEventBridge/NSAppleEventDescriptor+AEDescExtensions.m?at=swift-support):

- (instancetype)sendEventWithOptions:(AESendMode)sendOptions timeout:(NSTimeInterval)timeoutInSeconds error:(NSError * __autoreleasing *)error {
    if (error) *error = nil;
    AEDesc reply = {typeNull, NULL};
    OSStatus err = AESendMessage(self.aeDesc, &reply, sendOptions, (long)(timeoutInSeconds > 0 ? timeoutInSeconds * 60 : timeoutInSeconds)); // FIX
    if (err != noErr) {
        if (error) *error = [NSError errorWithDomain: NSOSStatusErrorDomain code: err userInfo: nil];
        return nil;
    }
    return [[self.class alloc] initWithAEDescNoCopy: &reply];
}

Steps to Reproduce:


Expected Results:


Actual Results:


Version:
OS X 10.11 (15A178w)
Xcode Version 7.0 beta (7A120f)

Notes:
NSAppleEventDescriptor.h now aliases the old AESendMode constants from AEDataModel.h as NSAppleEventSend.. constants for use in the new -sendMessage method. It would be helpful if the following constants from AEDataModel.h could be similarly aliased as these are also required in creating and sending events via NSAppleEventDescriptor:

/* Constants for timeout durations */
enum {
  kAEDefaultTimeout             = -1,   /* timeout value determined by AEM */
  kNoTimeOut                    = -2    /* wait until reply comes back, however long it takes */
};


enum {
                                        /* Constant for the returnID param of AECreateAppleEvent */
  kAutoGenerateReturnID         = -1,   /* AECreateAppleEvent will generate a session-unique ID */
                                        /* Constant for transaction IDs */
  kAnyTransactionID             = 0     /* no transaction is in use */
};