Objective-C Language Memory Management Manual Memory Management

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Example

This is an example of a program written with manual memory management. You really shouldn't write your code like this, unless for some reason you can't use ARC (like if you need to support 32-bit). The example avoids @property notation to illustrate how you used to have to write getters and setters.

@interface MyObject : NSObject {
    NSString *_property;
}
@end

@implementation MyObject
@synthesize property = _property;

- (id)initWithProperty:(NSString *)property {
    if (self = [super init]) {
        // Grab a reference to property to make sure it doesn't go away.
        // The reference is released in dealloc.
        _property = [property retain];
    }
    return self;
}

- (NSString *)property {
    return [[property retain] autorelease];
}

- (void)setProperty:(NSString *)property {
    // Retain, then release. So setting it to the same value won't lose the reference.
    [property retain];
    [_property release];
    _property = property;
}

- (void)dealloc {
    [_property release];
    [super dealloc]; // Don't forget!
}

@end
int main() {
    // create object
    // obj is a reference that we need to release
    MyObject *obj = [[MyObject alloc] init];
    
    // We have to release value because we created it.
    NSString *value = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:@"value"];
    [obj setProperty:value];
    [value release];

    // However, string constants never need to be released.
    [obj setProperty:@"value"];
    [obj release];
}


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