Cocoa in a Nutshell

Deallocating Objects

When an object is ready to be destroyed (as determined by the reference counting mechanism), the system will give the object an opportunity to clean up after itself by calling the dealloc method defined by NSObject. If the object has created or retained any other objects’ reference by its instance variables, it must implement this method and perform the appropriate tasks to maintain integrity of the reference counting system.

In Example 1-8, the Song class retains the title instance variable in the setTitle: method. To properly implement memory management, you need to balance this retain with a release. Example 1-10 shows the release performed in the Song class’s dealloc method.

Example 1-10. Implementing a dealloc method

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

This provides proper balance in the reference counting mechanism.

Warning

You should never call the dealloc method yourself. Always let the memory management methods do it.