The rules are simple:
- Any object returned by
alloc
,copy
,copyWithZone
, ornew
has a retain count of 1. -
retain
increases the receiving object's retain count. -
release
decreases the receiving object's retain count. -
autorelease
tells the current autorelease pool to send the receiving object therelease
message “later”. - Any factory method that doesn't have “new” or “copy” in the name (e.g.,
stringWithString:
) returns an object that it has autoreleased on your behalf.
Or, digested a bit:
- Any method whose name contains
copy
,alloc
,retain
, ornew
returns an object that you own. - Any method that doesn't, returns an object that you don't own.
- To own an object, retain it.
The incorrect implementation of setName:
that you show is incorrect because it stores an autoreleased object in an instance variable, when you mean to own the object. You should retain it or, in this case, copy it. One way is to simply use alloc
and initWithString:
, as in the correct example you show; the other way would be copy
.