Question

am writing an application that parses some xml and creates a dictionary of the element names and their values using the below key methods:

- (void)parserDidStartDocument:(NSXMLParser *)parser{
    foundCharacters = [[NSMutableString alloc] init];
}

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string { 
    if (accumulator) {
        [foundCharacters appendString:string];
    }
} 

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName { 

    if ([foundCharacters length] != 0) {

                    [parsedContent setObject:[foundCharacters copy] forKey:elementName];

                }
}

The leak occurs in the occurs on the “[parsedContent setObject:[foundCharacters copy] forKey:elementName];” line, I can’t work out a way to overcome this.

Any insights would be much appreciated.

Edit:

The memory leak only occurs if the request to parse is called more than once

I’ve also tried “[[foundCharacters copy] autorelease]” but no to avale

Answer 1

In your parserDidStartDocument: you alloc/init a mutable string, but I don’t see code where you dispose of this string again. You need to release the string again, for example in the parserDidEndDocument: method.

The memory leak is reported later probably because this is the last place where the variable was actually referenced.