Question

So I presume this is a memory issue, here’s the code:

- (NSString *)giveMeAStringGoddammit
{  
  NSString *s;
  // switch statement to choose which string to assign to s, so essentially:
  s = @"a string";      
  return s;  
}

And the calling code:

NSString *aString;
aString = [self giveMeAStringGoddammit];

However after this call, aString has an invalid summary when debugged and crashes when run.
I suspect I’m missing a retain or something, can someone help? Thanks.

Answer 1

What you’ve got works just fine:

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface Test : NSObject
- (NSString *)giveMeAStringGoddammit;
@end

@implementation Test
- (NSString *)giveMeAStringGoddammit
{  
    NSString *s;
    // switch statement to choose which string to assign to s, so essentially:
    s = @"a string";      
    return s;  
}
@end

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    @autoreleasepool {
        Test *t = [[Test alloc] init];
        NSLog(@"t says: %@", [t giveMeAStringGoddammit]);
    }
    return 0;
}

The output of this program is:

t says: a string

To make this a little more realistic, let’s change it to use a property:

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface Test : NSObject
@property(copy, nonatomic) NSString *string;
- (NSString *)giveMeAStringGoddammit;
@end

@implementation Test
@synthesize string;
- (NSString *)giveMeAStringGoddammit
{  
    NSString *s;
    // switch statement to choose which string to assign to s, so essentially:
    s = self.string;
    return s;  
}
@end

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    @autoreleasepool {
        Test *t = [[Test alloc] init];
        t.string = @"Hello world!";
        NSLog(@"t says: %@", [t giveMeAStringGoddammit]);
    }
    return 0;
}

This does what you’d expect:

t says: Hello world!