Question

I’m in my first big app and I’m having a bit of a problem with memory management here.

-(id) dateFormatter:(id)date{
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [dateFormatter setTimeStyle:NSDateFormatterShortStyle];
    [dateFormatter setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterLongStyle];
    if([date isKindOfClass:[NSString class]])
        return [dateFormatter dateFromString:date];
     else
        return [dateFormatter stringFromDate:date];
}

Now, As I see it, every return in this example need a autorelease at the end. But when I add the autorelease i am getting an EXC_BAD_ACCESS error and without it every thing is working great. I analyzed the problem and got that there are too many autorelease in the function, but i can’t see how can i release the memory of the NSDateFormatter without it.

Can any one explain this?

Answer 1

What about doing:

-(id) dateFormatter:(id)date{
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    [dateFormatter setTimeStyle:NSDateFormatterShortStyle];
    [dateFormatter setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterLongStyle];

    id retVal;
    if([date isKindOfClass:[NSString class]])
        retVal = [dateFormatter dateFromString:date];
     else
        retVal = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:date];
    [dateFormatter release];
    return retVal;

}