Question

I’ve had a look around but have been unable to find a definitive answer to this question.

If I have a class that performs an async operation, when and how do I release it?

-(void)main 
{
     AsyncObject *async = [[AsyncObject alloc] initWithDelegate:self];

     [async goDoSomething];
}

-(void)didSomething:(Result*)result 
{   

}

When do I release *async?

Answer 1

Thanks for the help guys, I did a bit of experimenting with NSURLConnection to see how it handled it (As you autorelease that and it will continue on with it’s async operations).

Turns out at the beginning of every async step it internally bumps its retain count and at the end of every async step it internally releases itself.

This means that it can be sent autorelease/release and it won’t actually be release until it has completed it’s current operation.

// MAIN.M

-(void)main 
{
     AsyncObject *async = [[[AsyncObject alloc] initWithDelegate:self] autorelease];

     [async goDoSomething];
}

-(void)didSomething:(Result*)result 
{   

}

// ASYNCOBJECT.M

-(void) goDoSomething
{
   [self retain];
}

-(void) finishedDoingSomething
{
   [delegate didSomething:result];
   [self release]
}