Question

I have 2 variables:

1. UIView *view1;
2. UIView *view2 = [[UIView alloc] init]

When I assign view1=view2 – should I release view2? Or just release view1?
Or view1 = [view2 retain]; [view1 release]; is right way?

Answer 1

It totally depends on what view1 and view2 are at the time of your view1 = view2. If it’s like this:

UIView *view1;
UIView *view2 = [[UIView alloc] init];

Then it’s totally fine to just do:

view1 = view2;

If however view1 already points to an object such as in this:

UIView *view1 = [[UIView alloc] init];
UIView *view2 = [[UIView alloc] init];

Then you would want to (probably) do this:

[view1 release];
view1 = [view2 retain];

I say probably because, well, it depends on what you are wanting to do. Maybe you don’t want the retain on view2 because you might not want to have a strong reference to it.

Of course all this is moot if you just use ARC anyway :-D.