Do we really need a safe release macro?

Posted by Ian1971 on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Ian1971
Published on 2011-02-21T16:37:13Z Indexed on 2011/03/02 7:24 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 218

Filed under:

objective-c

Quite a lot of people seem to use a macro such as

#define SAFE_RELEASE(X)  [X release]; X = nil;

(myself included).

I've been reassessing why I am using it and wanted to canvas some opinion.

The purpose (I think) for using this macro is so that if you were to accidentally use your object after releasing it then you won't get a bad access exception because objective-c will quite happily ignore it when the object is nil.

It strikes me that this has the potential to mask some obscure bugs. Maybe it would actually be preferable for the program to crash when you try to use X again. That way during testing you can find the issue and improve the code.

Does this macro encourage lazy programming?

Thoughts?

Related posts about objective-c

Blocking access to websites with objective-C / root privileges in objective-C

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a program in Objective-C (XCode 3.2, on Snow Leopard) that is capable of either selectively blocking certain sites for a duration or only allow certain sites (and thus block all others) for a duration. The reasoning behind this program is rather simple. I tend to get distracted when I… >>> More
Objective-C with some Objective-C++, calling a normal c++ method "referenced from" problem

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I made an Objective-C project for the iPhone. I had only one cpp class, the soundEngine taken from some Apple demo. Now I'm trying to merge OpenFeint which is coded in Objective-C++. As soon as I drop in the code without even referring to it from my code, when I hit Build, my Objective-C code… >>> More
Add an objective @property attribute in objective-c

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Does anyone know of a way to add additional attribute types to the @property keyword without modifying the compiler? Or can anyone think of another way to genericize getter/setter creation? Basically, I have a lot of cases in a recent project where it's handy for objects to lazily instantiate their… >>> More
ObjectiveC Syntax for Specifying Protocol Name in Method Argument

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
What's the ObjectiveC syntax for specifying a protocol as an argument in a method? Say I have 2 protocols, MyProtocol and MyProtocolCB: @protocol MyProtocolCB <NSObject> - (void) func; @end @protocol MyProtocol <NSObject> - (void) register:(MyProtocolCB*) cb; @end I'm receiving this… >>> More
ObjectiveC builtin template system ?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am developing an iPhone application and I use HTML to display formatted text. I often display the same webpage, but with a different content. I would like to use a template HTML file, and then fill it with my diffent values. I wonder if ObjectiveC has a template system similar to ERB in Ruby. That… >>> More

Developer IT