UIViewController pushViewController high retain count of View controller

Question

I wrote the following piece of code:

-(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{

GameViewController *gameViewController = [[GameViewController alloc]initWithLevelNumber:([levelGroup intValue]*100+indexPath.row) Bonus:NO];

NSLog(@"Retain Counter =%d",gameViewController.retainCount);

[navController pushViewController:gameViewController animated:YES];
[gameViewController release];

NSLog(@"Retain Counter=%d",gameViewController.retainCount);

[tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];
}

The results of the two logs are, in sequence 1 and 6! How this is possible? I only call the alloc method one time and release after push the controller on the stack.. alloc-> +1, push-> +1, release-> -1 = 1 or not?

I'd like the view controller is dealloc'd when i pop it off the stack..

Answer 1

Autorelease your GameController creation, like this:

GameViewController *gameViewController = [[[GameViewController alloc]initWithLevelNumber:([levelGroup intValue]*100+indexPath.row) Bonus:NO] autorelease];

Then delete [gameViewController release]; Then your code looks kosher, and gameViewController will be autoreleased after being popped from the nav stack. Don't worry about retainCount - when you push a view controller, UIKit takes over and will retain/release the thing as needed. You just have to worry about your code. Actually, the way you have it written should be fine, I just think my suggestions here make the code cleaner.

Unless you see in Instruments that you have a memory leak of your gameViewController object, I think you needn't worry.