Releasing of strings

Question

Hi guys, I got a doubt that when should the strings are released.I am not made any allocation to the string is there any necessary to release the string?

Thank you, Monish Kumar.

Answer 1

No if you do not "allocate" the string they are auto released. for example

NSString *aTestString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Hello %@",@"World"];

This string is auto released, so you do not have to call [aTestString release];

If you would do:

NSString *aTestString = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"Hello %@",@"World"];

Then you would need to release it by [aTestString release]; because you manually allocated. Therefore it is wise to autorelease it, so you do not have to think of it later on

NSString *aTestString = [[[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"Hello %@",@"World"] autorelease];

But that would just be the same as the first piece of code I gave ya. Back to the point, no you do not have to manually release it as long as you do not allocate it yourself.

Answer 2

Did you create the string via a call to alloc, new, or a method containing copy? Did you explicitly retain the string yourself? If you got the NSString from a CFStringRef, did you create the CFStringRef with a function that included create? If not, you don't have to do anything. If you did, you have to either release or autorelease the string.