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Objective C Memory Management Essentials
Objective C Memory Management Essentials

Objective C Memory Management Essentials: Learn and put into practice various memory management techniques in Objective-C to create robust iOS applications

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Objective C Memory Management Essentials

Chapter 2. Automatic Reference Counting

Good ideas live a long life and bad ones die fast. In Objective-C, reference counting's long life was seen as a very good idea. The next step of evolution in this is that it became automatic, so we call it Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), which was introduced by Apple Inc. in 2011 for application development on its desktop and mobile OS, Mac OS X Lion, and iOS 5. It changed the name of the initial referencing counting to Manual Reference Counting.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • ARC and how it works
  • Advantages and disadvantages of ARC
  • Project settings for ARC
  • Mixing code that doesn't support ARC with your project
  • Memory model in Objective C
  • ARC in UI kit

What is ARC and how does it work?

If you remember, the idea of reference counting covers the actual deletion of objects from the memory. With reference counting, Objective-C takes care of the actual object destruction. Owner objects are only responsible for releasing their claim of ownership on the object. So, logically the idea that appeared next was to make everything completely automatic as it was done in languages such as Java and C#. This idea was developed in the Garbage collection branch and Automatic Reference Counting.

Garbage collection is only available for Mac OS X, starting with version 10.5. Also, note that iOS applications can't use Garbage collection; since it relies on the power of the device, it will take some time to process, forcing the user to wait the process end, thus producing a bad user experience. It is also deprecated since OS X Version 10.8 is in favor of ARC and is scheduled to be removed in the forthcoming versions of OS X.

ARC is a new and innovative way...

How ARC looks

Start by picturing a traditional Objective-C source code file written by an expert Cocoa programmer. The retain, release, and autorelease messages are sent in all the right places and are in perfect balance.

Now, imagine editing the source code file, removing every instance of the retain, release, and autorelease messages, and changing a single build setting in Xcode that instructs the compiler to put all the suitable memory management calls back into your program when the source code is compiled. That's ARC. It's just what the name suggests—traditional Cocoa reference counting, being automatically done.

At its core, ARC is not a runtime service; it doesn't work on program execution, as Garbage collection does. On the other hand, the new Clang, the compiler frontend for C, C++, Objective-C, and Objective-C++, provides it as a two-part phase (we will call these phases "cycles"). In the following diagram, you can see these two phases. At the cycle...

Project settings for ARC

When a project is set to utilize ARC, the compiler flag -fobjc-arc is by default set for every Objective-C source file. ARC can be disabled for particular classes through the compiler flag, -fno-obj-arc. In Xcode, go to the target Build Phases tab, open the Compile Sources group, and you will be able to see the source file list. When you double-click on the file where you want to set it, a pop-up panel will appear. In that panel, get in the -fno-obj-arc flag and click on Done to finish.

If ARC was not enabled when the project was created, then to enable it, follow this process:

  1. Open the project.
  2. Go to Edit | Refactor | Convert to Objective-C ARC.
  3. If there is no problem and it's ready to convert, it will check your code.

By default, all newly created Objective-C projects in Xcode 5 are enabled with ARC. However, if you need to disable it, follow these steps:

  1. Select Project.
  2. Select Targets.
  3. From the right panel, go to Build Settings.
  4. Select Automatic Reference Counting...

A memory model in Objective-C

A very significant improvement in Objective C 2.0 is its memory model. The countless remnants of problems from the first Objective-C implementations as a preprocessor that induced C were cleaned up. In older versions, Objective-C objects were simply C structures, containing a pointer to their classes in their first fields, and its pointers were just able to receive messages when you wanted to send them.

Now every object pointer comes into one of the following categories: weak, strong, autoreleasing, and unsafe unretained. When ARC is disabled, the programmer is responsible to take care of them all, being sure that they are all safe, for the reason that all those pointers just fit the last category.

The default category (type qualifier) is a strong pointer; they are largely correspondent to the consequences of writing flawless defensive retain/release code. Assigning to a strong pointer is relative to retain the new value and release the old value, because owning...

What you need to know about ARC and weak references

Weak references have been supported on GNUstep Objective-C runtime since version 1.5, since version 5 of iOS, and version 10.7 of OS X. ARC works through the compatibility library as well, but it requires modifications of many classes in order to work with weak references.

Summary

In this chapter, we focused our attention on Automatic Reference Counter, its advantages, how it works, and how to properly set up and integrate it into current projects.

In the next chapter, we will talk about the autorelease pool mechanism and its classes, blocks, and threads. We will also understand the memory model in Objective-C. I hope this chapter has provided you with a good understanding of ARC.

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Description

If you are new to Objective-C or a veteran in iOS application development, this is the book for you. This book will ensure that you can actively learn the methods and concepts in relation to memory management in a more engaging way. Basic knowledge of iOS development is required for this book.

Who is this book for?

If you are new to Objective-C or a veteran in iOS application development, this is the book for you. This book will ensure that you can actively learn the methods and concepts in relation to memory management in a more engaging way. Basic knowledge of iOS development is required for this book.

What you will learn

  • Understand the theoretical basics of memory management
  • Discover how and why memory leaks occur
  • Use ObjectiveC to stem memory leaks in your application
  • Familiarize yourself with the various memory debugging tools available in Xcode
  • Implement data persistence using Core Data
  • Understand how ARC helps in memory management
  • Introduce yourself to Swift, the brand new programming language to write effective, lightningfast applications
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Publication date : Mar 25, 2015
Length: 200 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849697125
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Length: 200 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849697125
Category :
Languages :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
1. Introduction to Objective-C Memory Management Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Automatic Reference Counting Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Using Autorelease Pools Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Object Creation and Storage Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Managing Your Application Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Using Core Data for Persistence Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Key-value Programming Approaches Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Introduction to Swift Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Memory Management and Debugging Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Tips and Tricks for Memory Management Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Features of Xcode 6 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3
(3 Ratings)
5 star 33.3%
4 star 0%
3 star 33.3%
2 star 33.3%
1 star 0%
cnXe82 Jun 10, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Each chapter introduces the subject from basic principles through implementation. Complex concepts, such as reference counting, ARC, data persistence, key value coding, etc were presented in a way that I was able to quickly understand, even though I had no experience in these areas nor even in device programming. It introduced new and critical aspects to device programming that I was not familiar with, such as Swift. The book engages the central topic from multiple perspectives: from review of basic concepts and their application to coding (chapters 1-3), to related memory topics such as data persistence (chapter 5-6), and KVC (chapter 7), and then returning to more rigorous review of memory management concepts and their implementation (chapter 9); capped with presentation of the authors' practical experience in memory management (chapter 10). In general, I found this book to be an outstanding combination of theory, practice and experience packaged in such a way that it was readable and useful by an experienced programmer new to device programming. The authors are clearly knowledgeable and comfortable in their field.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Bug Blaster Jul 31, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
Un livre décevant car trop superficiel et flirtant bien souvent avec le hors sujet.Loin d'être mauvais, je le trouve plutôt destiné à de l'initiation.Ma conclusion est que c'est un énième ouvrage de vulgarisation avec cette particularité de se concentrer sur les sujets de la gestion de la mémoire et de la persistance en objective-c.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Glen Cunningham Aug 19, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2
The title is misleading. It is filled with light basics on Objective-C, but very very cursory coverage of memory management issues, and much of it is far out of date since ARC became the standard. I flew through several chapters of very basic stuff, really just beginner level Objective-C. Several times when I thought he was finally going to get to some of the meaty stuff I was looking for, he stopped short and I was left empty handed! It's not fair, in a book with Memory Management in the title, to tell us things like "even with ARC there an be memory leaks..." and then not show us the many ways they can happen other than a cycle.And the real reason I bought this was hoping to gain some deeper insights into how to use the very valuable Xcode tools like the Allocations instrument, along with some examples of using it to track down hard to find memory issues. But all I got was two pages with a little bit of text saying that the Allocations instrument was great for finding memory leaks and so forth, and a screen shot of it, but no instructions or examples whatsoever.This book might be of some use to a beginning Objective-C programmer (and he throws in a cursory chapter on Swift too, for some reason). But don't expect any depth or advanced tips at all!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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