Question

I have a line of code:

CGFloat *components = CGColorGetComponents([color CGColor]);

and the analyzer is saying that there is a leak here.
I tried free(components) but the app crashes when I do that.
Is there really a leak here since I didnt allocate anything. I know that CGColorGetComponents returns an array of 3 CGFloat’s but when I try to free them it crashes.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

See SO #792119.

Declaring the variable does not create the array. In fact, neither does CGColorGetComponents. Whatever created the CGColor object created the array and stored it inside the object; CGColorGetComponents lets you have the pointer to that storage.

In short, do not free your pointer.

You could, however, set it to NULL.