retain count weirdness
Post: #1
Will someone please explain to me how the following is possible?
prints out 1943!!!!!! WTF??? It SHOULD print out 1, should it not?
- aNumber is an instance variable in a subclass of NSObject
- the above code is my -init method
- I go multithreaded in the +initialize method (but, of course, I don't touch any instance variables in the +initilize method)
- I'm running Tiger
If anyone could shed some light on this mystery, I'd be eternally grateful. I've been trying to fix some retain/release issues in one of my apps for 2 days straight (without much luck). The above problem is just one of many unexplained phenomena I've been experiencing. Maybe there are ghosts in Tiger?
Andrew
Code:
aNumber = [[NSNumber alloc] initWithLong:0];
NSLog(@"%d", [aNumber retainCount]);prints out 1943!!!!!! WTF??? It SHOULD print out 1, should it not?
- aNumber is an instance variable in a subclass of NSObject
- the above code is my -init method
- I go multithreaded in the +initialize method (but, of course, I don't touch any instance variables in the +initilize method)
- I'm running Tiger
If anyone could shed some light on this mystery, I'd be eternally grateful. I've been trying to fix some retain/release issues in one of my apps for 2 days straight (without much luck). The above problem is just one of many unexplained phenomena I've been experiencing. Maybe there are ghosts in Tiger?
Andrew
Post: #2
I figured I'd write a simple program to see if the problem persists without multithreading. Indeed, it does. The following code prints out 17:
Code:
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
@interface AppController : NSObject
{
NSNumber *aNumber;
}
@end
@implementation AppController
- (id)init
{
if (self = [super init])
{
aNumber = [[NSNumber alloc] initWithLong:0];
NSLog(@"%d", [aNumber retainCount]);
}
return self;
}
@end
Post: #3
My Cocoa is incredibly rusty, but I can at least confirm that this happens to me as well when I run your code. You do get complaints that there is no NSAutoReleasePool in place, but I think that is just NSLog complaining.
Post: #4Fenris Wrote:You do get complaints that there is no NSAutoReleasePool in place
According to Apple,
Quote:NSAutoreleasePools are automatically created and destroyed in the main thread of applications based on the Application Kit, so your code normally does not have to deal with them there.
So I don't think that's the problem. Thanks for trying to help though
I'm starting to think that this is a bug in the Foundation framework. Try using numbers other than zero:
When I use 1, I get a retain count of 19.
When I use 2, I get a retain count of 5.
When I use some arbitrary number like 73, I get a retain count of 1 (which is correct).
Post: #5
Tiger now caches often-used NSNumbers which currently includes -1 through 12.
The details are here:
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/...ation.html
The details are here:
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/...ation.html
Post: #6belthaczar Wrote:Tiger now caches often-used NSNumbers which currently includes -1 through 12.
The details are here:
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/...ation.html
Apple Wrote:In Tiger "popular" numbers include -1..12, although this might very well change at any point, including in a software update.
LOL - I wonder how they determined that... 
Post: #7belthaczar Wrote:Tiger now caches often-used NSNumbers which currently includes -1 through 12.
The details are here:
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/...ation.html
Thank you sooo much for the reply!
What's next? Are they going to start caching "popular" NSStrings like @"Mac OS X"?
Post: #8
*chuckles*
Caching numbers? You are kidding right? Is there really that much overhead involved with Obj-C that numbers are classes bulky enough to merit caching?!
o_O_o
Caching numbers? You are kidding right? Is there really that much overhead involved with Obj-C that numbers are classes bulky enough to merit caching?!
o_O_o
Post: #9
A simple foundation project with no appkit confirms this. retain count for initWithLong:1 is 2 which is what you'd expect from the cached one.
Post: #10
Puzzler, malloc is slow. Every call avoided is a potentially significant speedup. Particularly with more and more cocoa apps using key-value coding, and therefore using many more NSNumbers than they used to, this is probably a very smart move indeed.
Post: #11
But I mean seriously. Why is it allocating it with malloc? Why isn't it stack allocated if it's temporary? I dunno, seems really stupid to have a wrapper class for numbers to me anyway... Whatever though, I guess this is just where OOP leads...
Post: #12Puzzler183 Wrote:I dunno, seems really stupid to have a wrapper class for numbers to me anyway
Container classes, like NSArray, NSSet, NSDictionary, etc. can only hold NSObjects (or subclasses of NSObject). Thus, if you want to store some numbers in one of these container objects, you need to have a number class which is a subclass of NSObject. That's why they created wrapper classes like NSNumber.
Much of Cocoa's way of doing things comes from the fact that everything in the framework descends from a root class: NSObject.
Post: #13
Also, it should be pointed out that you normally use the primitive data types, not NSNumber. So for instance, you don't do vector calculus with NSNumber. NSNumber is a wrapper for a number that needs a little more punch (and that needs to be descendant from NSObject). Java does the same thing with all its Integer, Double and the like.
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