Objective c - Reference counting

Question

Until five minutes I was sure that my understanding about Objective c reference counting is excellent, but when I started checking objects retainCount I was very surprised to see what I saw.

For example myViewController has a UITableview:

.h file

@interface RegularChatViewController : UIViewController <UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate>
{
     UITableView *_tableView;
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITableView *tableView; 

.m file

@synthesize tableView = _tableView;

- (void)loadView
{
    _tableView = [[UITableView alloc] init];  // STEP ONE
    NSLog(@"tableView retain count: %d",[_tableView retainCount]);

    self.tableView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, tableHeight); // STEP TWO
    NSLog(@"tableView retain count: %d",[_tableView retainCount]);  

    [self.view addSubview:self.tableView]; // STEP THREE
    NSLog(@"tableView retain count: %d",[_tableView retainCount]); 
}

To my surprise the input was:

tableView retain count: 1
tableView retain count: 2
tableView retain count: 3

obviously STEP ONE increase retain count by 1 with alloc

I also know that STEP THREE increase retain count by 1 with addSubview

But whats going on in STEP TWO ??? why did it increase the retain count???
is there something to do with ARC??

Answer 1

According to Apple docs on NSObject Protocol Reference for the retainCount method:

Important This method is typically of no value in debugging memory management issues. Because any number of framework objects may have retained an object in order to hold references to it, while at the same time autorelease pools may be holding any number of deferred releases on an object, it is very unlikely that you can get useful information from this method.

Answer 2

As soon as you interact with any framework method or function whatsoever, the retainCount method becomes completely useless, because you don't know what these things do in their black boxes (they could add your objects to autorelease pools or whatever) and you shouldn't care about it.

Using retainCount to debug memory management issues is always a bad idea. See this answer for even more reasons to avoid it.

Answer 3

I have a handy guide here: When to use retainCount?

In short, retainCount rarely means what you think it will. Without knowing how UITableView and UIView are implemented you can't know what the retain count should be. And we're not even taking autorelease into account...