iPhone: Memory Leak in Custom Class and NSMutableDictionary

Answer 1

Try [dictAttributes removeAllObjects] before releasing dictAttributes.

Edit:

Also, you will positive allocation because you are allocating memory for "tmp". The memory will be retained because you now have a reference from dictAttributes.

You then have more positive allocation when you add elements to the dictionary, which also need to be allocated and are kept in memory by the dictionary's internal references

Answer 2

Typical syntax is NSMutableDictionary *tmp = [[[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init] autorelease];

Answer 3

When you have strings as properties, declare them as copy, not retain.

  NSMutableDictionary *tmp = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
  self.dictAttributes = tmp;
  [tmp release];

the above is unnecessary, instead do: (retain count will automatically be incremented for this autorelease object)

self.dictAttributes = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithCapacity:0];

in dealloc do: (retain count will automatically be decremented)

self.dictAttributes = nil;

normally for properties you just set them to nil instead of explicitly releasing them since the get/setter handles that for you.