Question

In a simple UITableView I have:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
  NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc]initWithObjects:@"Pictures",@"Video",@"Text",@"Map",nil];
  self.selectionList = array;
  [array release];

  [super viewDidLoad];
}
...
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

  static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";

  UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
  if (cell == nil) {
    cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
  }

  NSUInteger row = [indexPath row];
  cell.textLabel.text = [selectionList objectAtIndex:row];

  return cell;
}

My question is this, why in the viewDidLoad section, does it need to be self.selectionList and not just selectionList?? I mean, the whole point is to pass the contents of the array we just created into the selectionList array, so why the self?

Answer 1

Whenever you use ‘self’ it will use the property setter and getter. That means that if you create a property as being retain it will allow you to release (as the setter will call a retain). If you didn’t use the setter (I’m assuming that it is a retain property), you could also write the above like this (but I wouldn’t recommend it):

- (void)viewDidLoad 
{
  [super viewDidLoad];
  selectionList = [[NSArray alloc]initWithObjects:@"Pictures",@"Video",@"Text",@"Map",nil];
}

- (void)dealloc
{
  [sectionList release];
  [super dealloc];
}