Question

And again my array of arrays ….

When I have an array “x” that contains multiple instances of an array “y”, how do I clear/release it without risking memory leaks?

are the following calls sufficient?

(a) clearing the array

[x removeAllObjects];

(b) releasing the array

[x release];

or do I need to enumerate the array, such as:

(c) clearing the array

for(int i=0;i<x.count;i++)
    [[x objectAtIndex:i] release];
    [x removeAllObjects];

(d) releasing the array

for(int i=0;i<x.count;i++)
    [[x objectAtIndex:i] release];
    [x release];

thanks in advance

Answer 1

(b) Should suffice. The array’s deallocator will release all contained objects, with a release for every retain (so multiple instances will be released as many times as they were added).

Never do [[x objectAtIndex:i] release] — you haven’t retained the returned object, so you will muck up its retain count by releasing it.