NSTimer memory management

Question

When I execute this code:

[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.5 target:self selector:@selector(showButtons) userInfo:nil repeats:NO];

do I need to nil it or release it, ot whatever for memory management?

I am using ARC

Answer 1

Yes, NSTimer will maintain a strong reference to the target, which can cause (especially in repeating timers) strong reference cycles (a.k.a. retain cycles). In your example, though, the timer does not repeat, and is delayed only 0.5, so worst case scenario, you will have a strong reference cycle that will automatically resolve itself in 0.5 seconds.

But a common example of an unresolved strong reference cycle would be to have a UIViewController with a NSTimer property that repeats, but because the NSTimer has a strong reference to the UIViewController, the controller will end up being retained.

So, if you're keeping the NSTimer as an instance variable, then, yes, you should invalidate it, to resolve the strong reference cycle. If you're just calling the scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval, but not saving it to an instance variable (as one might infer from your example), then your strong reference cycle will be resolved when the NSTimer is complete.

And, by the way, if you're dealing with repeating NSTimers, don't try to invalidate them in dealloc of the owner of the NSTimer because the dealloc obviously will not be called until the strong reference cycle is resolved. In the case of a UIViewController, for example, you might do it in viewDidDisappear.

By the way, the Advanced Memory Management Programming Guide explains what strong reference cycles are. Clearly, this is in a section where they're describing the proper use of weak references, which isn't applicable here (because you have no control over the fact that NSTimer uses strong references to the target), but it does explain the concepts of strong reference cycles nicely.

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If you don't want your NSTimer to keep a strong reference to self, in macOS 10.12 and iOS 10, or later, you can use the block rendition and then use the weakSelf pattern:

typeof(self) __weak weakSelf = self;
[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.5 repeats:false block:^(NSTimer * _Nonnull timer) {
    [weakSelf showButtons];
}];

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By the way, I notice that you're calling showButtons. If you're trying to just show some controls on your view, you could eliminate the use of the NSTimer altogether and do something like:

self.button1.alpha = 0.0;
self.button2.alpha = 0.0;

[UIView animateWithDuration:0.25
                      delay:0.5
                    options:UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut | UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction
                 animations:^{
                     self.button1.alpha = 1.0;
                     self.button2.alpha = 1.0;
                 }
                 completion:nil];

This doesn't suffer the retain issues of NSTimer objects, and performs both the delay as well as the graceful showing of the button(s) all in one statement. If you're doing additional processing in your showButtons method, you can put that in the completion block.