I am trying to store the md5 string as a class instance variable instead of the actual password. I have a static function that will return a md5 string which I'm trying to store in an instance variable instead of the actual password.

I have the following setter for my class instance variable:

-(void)setPassword:(NSString *)newpass{
 if(newpass != password){
  password = [utils md5HexDigest:newpass];
 }
}

This will pass back the correct md5 string and save it to the password variable in my init function: [self setPassword:pword];.

If I call another instance method and try to access self.password" I will get "EXC_BAD_ACCESS".

I understand that the memory is getting released, but I have no clue to make sure it stays.

I have tried alloc init with autorelease with no luck.

This is the md5HexDigest function getting called during the init (graciously found in another stackoverflow question):

+ (NSString*)md5HexDigest:(NSString*)input {
    const char* str = [input UTF8String];
    unsigned char result[CC_MD5_DIGEST_LENGTH];
    CC_MD5(str, strlen(str), result);

    NSMutableString *ret = [NSMutableString stringWithCapacity:CC_MD5_DIGEST_LENGTH*2];

    for(int i = 0; i<CC_MD5_DIGEST_LENGTH; i++) {
   [ret appendFormat:@"%02x",result[i]];
    }

return ret; }

Any help/pointers would be greatly appreciated. I would rather have the md5 string saved in memory than the actual password calling the md5 every time I needed to use the password.

Thanks in advance.