Question

I have a question about initializers that overlaps with memory management. I’m confident that this is a perfectly functional initializer (even tho it calls setters in the init method which is discouraged) . . .

@synthesize age = _age, name = _name, delegate = _delegate;

- (id)initWithName:(NSString *)name Age:(int)age delegate:(MyDelegateClass *)delegate
{
    if (self = [super init]) {

        [self setName:name];
        [self setAge:age];
        [self setDelegate:delegate];
     }

  return self;

}

But what about this initializer? Do i need to allocate memory for those ivars or does it just work out of the box like this?

- (id)initWithName:(NSString *)name Age:(int)age delegate:(MyDelegateClass *)delegate
{
    if (self = [super init]) {

        _name = name;
        _age = age;
        _delegate = delegate;
     }

  return self;

}

Answer 1

A few things:

1. (void) return type won’t work. Make it (id)
2. compiler will warn on the assignment in the conditional, use two lines
3. it’s common practice to set ivars directly in init, not referring to self*
4. neither of your forms you suggest allocate memory. that’s done when the object is allocated.

so …

- (id)initWithName:(NSString *)name age:(int)age delegate:(MyDelegateClass *)delegate {

    self = [super init];
    if (self) {
        _name = name;
        _age = age;
        _delegate = delegate;
    }
    return self;
}