Question

Do either or both of these date pointers requires a [release] when I’m done with them. How would i know this? I’m unsure since I’m not doing init explicitly.

NSDate *date = [NSDate date];

NSDate *date = [dateWithTimeIntervalSince1970:100000000];

Answer 1

Both are autoreleased, that is you don’t need to release them yourself. The rule of thumb is that you own an object if you send +alloc or -copy or explicitly retain it:

• [[SomeClass alloc] init…]
• [someObject copy]
• [some object retain]

If you own an object you must release it. +new is a shortcut to +alloc and -init.