Re: NSMutableDictionary Q's
Re: NSMutableDictionary Q's
- Subject: Re: NSMutableDictionary Q's
- From: Mel Walker <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 19:22:52 -0700
On Friday, January 3, 2003, at 07:06 PM,
email@hidden wrote:
I'm going out on a wee bit of a limb because I haven't seen the
source code
for NSString, but . . . the NSCopying protocol (to which NSString
conforms)
strongly implies that a nonmutable string that is sent a "copy"
message is
simply retained.[...]
There is if it's passed a NSMutableString. The dictionary will not
retain keys, it will copy them. This string is being used as a key, I
would copy it if I were programming it.
This is important, because if you just retain the string object, AND
the string was mutable, it could change behind the scenes in another
function somewhere. If you copy the string object, the value of the
string will not change, since your object will own the only copy.
The "rule" as I understand it is: If you want the actual object, retain
it. If you want the value of the object, copy it. As was said earlier,
this is mostly applied to names or dictionary keys.
--
Mel Walker <email@hidden>
"I'm fine, but I need more funding."
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