Question

I am newbie to iPhone programming. I have the following doubt which is stopping me to go ahead. Please consider the following code:

---------.h------
@interface myClass: UIViewController
{
    UIImage *temp;
}

@property (nonatomic, retain) UIImage *temp;

 ---------.m------
 @interface myClass
 @synthesize temp;

 -(void) dealloc
 {
   [temp release];
   [super dealloc];
 } 

1. The above is the only program code. Thats it … nothing else. Do I need to declare [temp release] in dealloc method even though I am not using the property accessor method in my program at all. What if I don’t declare [temp release] in dealloc. Will that create memory leak as I am releasing something which I haven’t retained as I am not calling property accessor method.

2. Also when i print retain count for temp why does it show 0 even though it is getting retained in @property.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

What you are doing is correct. Scroll to the “dealloc” section of this Apple Doc: Declared Properties

Soon, however, these properties will be cleaned up automatically when you synthesize them (in the next Cocoa update) — that being said, a convention I have personally began to follow so that my code works in the future is setting self.temp = nil; in dealloc instead of sending a release message (read the apple doc i posted, it explains this). The accessor method created at runtime releases the object first, so for me and quite a few other devs, this is a better/safer way of cleaning up declared properties in our dealloc.