Memory management for classes like NSNumber, NSSet

Question

These are classes and they declares pointers... to objects right? You send methods to them like objects. NSNumber * myNumber = [NSNumber numberWithInteger: x];

So why are they not released like so: [myNumber release];

Thanks!

Answer 1

By convention, class method initializers like the one you've shown create autoreleased instances, so you don't need to call release unless you retain them somehow. However, the instance method initializers - like initWithInteger: in your case - return retained instances. Those you would need to release yourself.