Re: Accessor method styles

FROM : Ricky Sharp
DATE : Tue Aug 29 17:18:43 2006

On Tuesday, August 29, 2006, at 09:53AM, Andrew Merenbach <andrew.<email_removed>> wrote:

>Hi, all.  I've seen threads where this has been beaten to death, but 
>I am still left with major questions.  I have seen several kinds of 
>accessor/mutator methods:
>
>- (void)setFoo:(AMFoo *)aFoo {
>    [aFoo retain];
>    [myFoo release];
>    myFoo = aFoo;
>}
>
>- (void)setFoo:(AMFoo *)aFoo {
>    if (aFoo != myFoo) {
>        [myFoo release];
>        myFoo = [aFoo  retain];
>    }
>}
>
>- (void)setFoo:(AMFoo *)aFoo {
>    id oldFoo = myFoo;
>    myFoo = [aFoo retain];
>    [oldFoo release];
>}
>
>- (void)setFoo:(AMFoo *)aFoo {
>    [myFoo autorelease];
>    myFoo = [aFoo retain];
>}
>
>My question is not precisely which is "better," as my understanding 
>is that they *all* (or at least the first two and the last one) have 
>their merits, speed considerations, etc.
>
>What I want to know, as an intermediate Cocoa programmer--and what I 
>have been unable (at least with my own searching) to find on the 
>archives--is what are the *advantage* and *disadvantages* of each?  I 
>know some basics, such as that the last one can apparently make 
>debugging in a crash situation rather difficult due to the -
>autorelease call.
>
>But what about number three, for instance?  Is it better than number 
>two?  Does Apple really recommend number one?  Why?


See <http://homepage.mac.com/mmalc/Stepwise/accessorMethods2.html>

--
Rick Sharp
Instant Interactive(tm)