Can I early-release an autorelease object?

Question

i.e. would cause the object to be released immediately and not have to be released by the pool if I did this?

[[NSArray arrayWithCapacity:100] release];

Can't find a clear explanation in the docs about this.

Altruist

Answer 1

It would likely crash when the object would normally be autoreleased. autorelease means "delayed release", so it will be released: just later. Since the object won't exist later as you are manually releasing it, you will likely crash due to the runtime sending the -release message to your now-deallocated object.

Edit: Note that if you -retain objects that come autoreleased, you do have to -release them: you are taking ownership.

Wellbeing

Let's say that (for whatever reason) I do want it to get released right now. Is "[[obj retain] release]" a valid option? – F

Not really. In that case, you should wrap the whole thing in @autoreleasepool { } to create and destroy the pool the autorelease is happening in. – Wellbeing

agree, wrap the whole thing in @autoreleasepool – Hexamethylenetetramine

Answer 2

I realise that this is stupid now, and that I shouldn't be releasing something I don't own.

Altruist

Answer 3

If you don't want the object to go into the auto-release pool, you can do a manual alloc and initWithCapabity. If you do that, you'll have to manually release it at some point.

Lifetime