Here is an explanation of when ARC (Automatic Reference Counting) won't help you release memory, but GC (Garbage Collection) would:
Objective-C and Memory Management
In Objective-C, memory management has evolved over time:
- Manual Reference Counting (MRC) - Developers manually retain and release objects
- Garbage Collection (GC) - Automatic memory management, objects are collected when no longer referenced
- Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) - Compiler inserts retain and release calls automatically
When ARC Doesn't Help
ARC is very helpful for most memory management tasks, but there are a few cases where it falls short:
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Circular References
- If two objects hold strong references to each other, ARC can't break the cycle
- This results in a memory leak, as the objects are never deallocated
- GC would automatically detect and break circular references
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Objective-C Runtime Calls
- Calling certain Objective-C runtime functions like `objc_setAssociat...