Question

i’m a bit confused, when we release a pointer or use nil to the pointer, it releases the memory. But what about the pointer itself? it points to an object that does not exist anymore, so is the pointer automatically removed? is it implied that dealloc releases both the memory and the pointer itself?

Thanks

Answer 1

The pointer is a local variable representing an address in memory, not an object. There’s nothing to release.

For example:

int i = 1;
NSSomething *object = [[NSSomething alloc] init];

You now have 2 local variables in the stack, one of type int and the other of type pointer to NSSomething. You also have a new NSSomething instance in the heap. If you simply return now, your i and object variables will go out of scope and disappear, but the NSSomething instance in the heap will live on forever. To avoid that, you must release (or autorelease) it before you return from the function.