Question

I have a UITextView which has its text sets from a local variable. Is it possible that after this:

[textView setEnabled:NO];

The retain count gets incremented by one?

EDIT:

The “problem”, if it is a problem, is in the constructor of a small view:

- (id)initWithData:(NSMutableArray *) {
  UITextView *myText;
  if ( ( self = [super init] ) ) {
    myText = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:aRect];
    // retain count = 1;
    [myText setEnabled:NO]; // retain count 2
    [self addSubview:myText]; // retain count 3
    [myText release];  // retain count 2
  }
}

Now, I’ve “autoreleased” the text view, but I’m not sure if the memory is well managed (the post is related to this question).

Answer 1

Possible? Absolutely.

Do you care? Not a bit. Not unless you overrode setEnabled: in a subclass and you are the one making the retain call.

If it is, it is an implementation detail in the frameworks.

---

Think about retain counts as deltas, not as absolute numbers. The absolute value is meaningless. Thus:

- (id)initWithData:(NSMutableArray *) {
  UITextView *myText;
  if ( ( self = [super init] ) ) {
    myText = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:aRect]; // rc +1
    [myText setEnabled:NO]; // rc change irrelevant
    [self addSubview:myText]; // rc change irrelevant
    [myText release];  // rc -1
  }
}

So, yes, you have managed memory correctly; at the end of the scope of the myText local variable, all retains have been balanced by releases.

When you addSubview:, whether that method retains the object or makes a copy of it is an implementation detail that isn’t relevant to memory management in this scope. Obviously, that the subview maintains a reference and retains it is necessary for its purposes, but that is an implementation detail beyond the scope of this method’s memory management!