http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSValue_Class/
An NSValue object serves as an object wrapper for a standard C or Objective-C data item, allowing it to be stored in a collection object such as an NSArray or NSDictionary.
NSValue is NOT a property list format - you can’t write one to disk in NSUserDefaults, for example. Use the various NSStringFrom* foundation functions to do this. (NSNumber, a subclass of NSValue, IS a property list format.)
[http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/4objc_runtime_overview/chapter_4_section_6.html] has a list of the return types for objCType, to determine the type of data a NSValue contains.
The above link is no longer working. [http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Articles/chapter_13_section_9.html] appears to be the new location. Probably a better practice to just use @encode() anyway, I’d assume.
What’s the difference between these two creation methods?
The documentation for the two are nearly identical, save for the second that has this very odd line “This method is equivalent to value:withObjCType:, which is part of Cocoa. “
GNUstep docs say the second one is a “ Synonym for value:withObjCType:.” I dunno…
These functions are identical. In fact the first one calls the second one, which makes valueWithBytes perform better :-)