What does <non-object> in Allocation "heapshots" mean?

Question

I'm having a hard time fixing memory related issues in my iPad application, but, good thing is, that I've learned about "heapshots" because of that. Bad thing is, I'm still unable to figure out what some of the information provided to me means.

So, what are these non-objects which are still alive and takes most of the memory described in Heap Growth? Is it possible to get rid of them? It looks like that most of them are related to various drawing operations, CALayer, context and etc (Category:"Malloc" or "Realloc"). I can provide more details if needed.

Answer 1

It means that memory block was allocated not for an object (e.g. pure c structure). Usually they are allocated by system framework code, so there are some other objects that leaks. E.g. if you forgot to release UIView, then it's layer will not be freed too.

You can open "Extended detail" panel (see "View" menu) and analyze the call stack. Take in mind that one release you forgot can lead to a lot of memory leaks, so try to fix the easiest leaks and then check whether other leaks disappears.

One more trick. You can disable functional block of your application one by one and see whether leaks disappears. So you will be able to locate module (class, functional block, etc) where it occurs.