Question

I’m using the following code many times in my app (especially to manage a NavigationController):

MyAppDelegate *appDelegate = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate]; 

When should I release it ?

Thx for helping,

Stephane

Answer 1

Don’t. Never release your application delegate – it is managed automatically by the OS.

If you look in your app’s main.m file, you’ll see some code that initializes an instance of UIApplication that represents your app – it is its responsibility to manage the application delegate’s lifecycle, not your responsibility.

EDIT as @Goz points out, you should release it if at some point you retain it. However, since the application object (and therefore, by extension its delegate) is guaranteed to remain in scope for the life of the app (unless you go messing with it), it’s far better to simply not do any memory management on the delegate, as this avoids the possibility of accidental over-release or other related issues.