strange and alien memory behavior - ios

in my project i created a class viewTransistion
#import "viewTransition.h"
#import "quiz.h"
#import "mode.h"
#import "result.h"
#import "aboutGame.h"
#import "ViewController.h"
static UIView *cview=nil;
static quiz *quizObj=nil;
static mode *modeObj=nil;
static result *resultObj=nil;
static aboutGame *aboutGameObj=nil;
static ViewController *viewControllerObj=nil;
#implementation viewTransition
+(void) viewsTransitionCurrentView:(id)currentView toNextView:(NSString*)nextViewName
{
if(nextViewName == #"quiz")
{
quizObj = [[quiz alloc]init];
cview = quizObj.view;
NSLog(#"quizObj=%d", [quizObj retainCount]);
}
if(nextViewName == #"mode")
{
modeObj = [[mode alloc]init];
cview = modeObj.view;
NSLog(#"modeObj=%d", [modeObj retainCount]);
}
if(nextViewName == #"result")
{
resultObj = [[result alloc]init];
cview = resultObj.view;
NSLog(#"resultObj=%d", [resultObj retainCount]);
}
if(nextViewName == #"aboutGame")
{
NSLog(#"aboutGameObj=%d",[aboutGameObj retainCount]);
aboutGameObj = [[aboutGame alloc]init];
cview = aboutGameObj.view;
}
if(nextViewName == #"viewController")
{
viewControllerObj = [[ViewController alloc]init];
cview = viewControllerObj.view;
}
[UIView transitionFromView:[currentView view] toView:cview duration:2 options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCurlUp completion:^(BOOL finished) {}];
[currentView release];
cview = nil;
}
#end
its purpose is to perform view transition so i don't have to write code again n again
first i created method and variables of this class as non static...
i checked on device i was getting leaks maybe because i am alloc initing and not releasing objs in if statements
if i release objs in the last i can't perform view transition because on the next view i want to go to is destroyed
......................................
to check i converted this class methods and variables to static so i can check retain counts
the reason why i converted to static...if every time new instance is created of this class i will always get retain count 1 of current instance
now for the first time i execute this it works fine but if you look at aboutGame if block the first execution prints 0 next time if i want to go again on this page the NSLog line becomes zombie???
......................................
in the last line [currentView release] is to remove root view controller ... but i didn't alloc init this i am not the owner so why i should release it.. i saw code in a book to release view controller.
......................................
which is the best way to implement this kind of situation static or non-static
i am using this class method and variable as static and its working fine no leaks no zombies no problem?????

Some observations:
class names should start with a capital letter
retainCount is useless. Don't call it.
if you are re-assigning an instance variable (or global), you should release the old value before assignment (this may be the source of your memory leak).
you are correct; you shouldn't be releasing currentView in that method.
which is the best way to implement this kind of situation static or
non-static
This question doesn't really make sense; it belies a misunderstanding of how view controllers and memory management work on iOS.
If you can, I would recommend you convert the project to use ARC (automatic reference counting). That'll mostly take care of the memory management for you (mostly -- you still have to think about it, just not so mechanically).
Next, you'll want to dive back into the "programming with ..." guides related to UIView and UIViewController.

I think you don't need to do this
actual thing you do in this function is
[UIView transitionFromView:[currentView view] toView:cview duration:2 options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCurlUp completion:^(BOOL finished) {}];
and this is what you want

Related

Retain the delegate of UIImagePickerController

I've wrote a class which gets an image from the camera. Its header is as follows:
typedef void(^ImageTakenCallback)(UIImage *image);
#interface ImageGetter : NSObject <UIImagePickerControllerDelegate, UIPopoverControllerDelegate>
{
UIImagePickerController *picker;
ImageTakenCallback completionBlock
}
-(void) requestImageInView:(UIView*)view withCompletionBlock:(void(^)(UIImage*))completion;
#end
As you can see, I'm trying to make something like that in client code:
[[[ImageGetter alloc] init] requestImageInView:_viewController.view withCompletionBlock:^(UIImage *image) {
// do stuff with taken image
}];
Here is how I've implemented ImageGetter:
-(void) requestImageInView:(UIView*)view withCompletionBlock:(ImageTakenCallback)completion
{
completionBlock = [completion copy];
picker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init];
picker.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera;
picker.delegate = self;
[view addSubview:picker.view];
}
- (void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker_
didFinishPickingImage:(UIImage *)image
editingInfo:(NSDictionary *)editingInfo
{
[picker.view removeFromSuperview];
picker = nil;
completionBlock(image);
}
The problem is since I'm using ARC, the instance of ImageGetter is deallocated instantly after call for -requestImage..., so the weak delegate of picker becomes nil.
Which are common ways to resolve such a issue?
I can see some ways, however, none of them seems to be quite right:
retain ImageGetter from client code, for example, assign it to a strong property. The problems here are: I wont be able to release it by setting this property to nil right after I get image, because this will mean setting retain count of object to 0 while executing the method of this object. Also, I don't want unnecessary properties (well, it is not a big problem, but nevertheless).
disable ARC for ImageGetter and manually retain at start itself and release after sending image to callback.
make static manager ImageGetterManager, which will have method requestImage..., it will create ImageGetter instances, retain them, redirect the requestImage... call, get callbacks from them and release. That seems the most consistent way, but is not it a bit complex for such a little code?
So how can I build such a class?
You can handle that within the ImageGetter class by creating and releasing a "self-reference".
In a class extension in the implementation file, declare a property
#interface ImageGetter ()
#property (strong, nonatomic) id selfRef;
#end
In requestImageInView:, set self.selfRef = self to prevent deallocation.
In the completion method, set self.selfRef = nil.
Remark: Actually you can manage the retain count even with ARC:
CFRetain((__bridge CFTypeRef)(self)); // Increases the retain count to prevent deallocation.
CFRelease((__bridge CFTypeRef)(self)); // Decreases the retain count.
But I am not sure if this is considered "good programming" with ARC or not.
Any feedback is welcome!
If this issue is introduced when switching to ARC, I should just go for option 1, and define it as a strong property.
However the behaviour is a bit different than you described for option 1: Setting the property to nil, does NOT mean the object is instantly released, it will just cause a decrement of the retaincount. ARC will handle that fine, the object will be released as soon as all referenced objects have 'released' it.
You can use the following strategy:
ImageGetter* imgGetter = [[ImageGetter alloc] init];
[imgGetter requestImageInView:_viewController.view withCompletionBlock:^(UIImage *image) {
// do stuff with taken image
[imgGetter releaseCompletionBlock]; // With this line, the completion block will retain automatically imgGetter, which will be released after the release of the completionBlock.
}];
Inside your ImageGetter implementation class, create a method that you can call inside the block like this.
-(void) releaseCompletionBlock
{
completionBlock = nil;
}

Why is dealloc called immediately after the instantiation?

I have a small problem with ARC and dealloc of the BaseViewController class being called after the instantiation inside the loop and I don't know why. What I'm trying to do is basically store all the base view controllers on an array.
#interface CategoriesContainerViewController ()
#property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet UIScrollView* scrollView;
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray* categoriesViews;
#end
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
// Get the categories from a plist
NSString* path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"categories" ofType:#"plist"];
NSDictionary* dict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
NSMutableArray* categories = [dict objectForKey:#"Categories"];
NSLog(#"%i", [categories count]);
// Setup the scrollview
_scrollView.delegate = self;
_scrollView.directionalLockEnabled = YES;
_scrollView.alwaysBounceVertical = YES;
_scrollView.scrollEnabled = YES;
CGRect screenRect = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds];
// Loop through the categories and create a BaseViewController for each one and
// store it in an array
for (int i = 0; i < [categories count]; i++) {
BaseViewController* categoryView = [[BaseViewController alloc]
initWithCategory:[categories objectAtIndex:i]];
CGRect frame = categoryView.view.frame;
frame.origin.y = screenRect.size.height * i;
categoryView.view.frame = frame;
[_scrollView addSubview:categoryView.view];
[_categoriesViews addObject:categoryView];
}
}
You are committing a common beginner mistake by keeping a reference to a view controller's view, but not the view controller itself.
You create a BaseViewController object in a local variable categoryView. That's a strong reference, so the object is kept around. Then the loop repeats, and you create a new BaseViewController, replacing the old value in categoryView. When you do that, there are no longer any strong references to the previous BaseViewController that was in categoryView, so it gets deallocated.
If you want the BaseViewController to stick around, you need to keep a strong reference to it somewhere.
In addition to that, you are breaking another rule of iOS development. You should never put one view controller's view(s) inside another view controller's unless you use the parent/child view controller support that was added in iOS 5 and extended in iOS 6. The docs say do NOT do that.
Mixing views from multiple view controllers on the screen will cause you no end of problems. There is tons of housekeeping you have to do in order to make it work, and not all of that housekeeping is documented. Its possible, but it will take you many weeks to iron out the bugs, if you ever able to. Plus, since you are doing something that Apple expressly says not to do, the burden is on you to make it work correctly, and there is a substantial risk that a new iOS release will break your app.
Initialize BaseViewController above for loop and then store the array value inside the object of BaseViewController. Because every time it is allocating and initializing. So setting the previous object to nil. Hence the issue causes to be deallocated.

Why a UIViewController would stay in memory

Assuming that a view controller is created like this:
#property (nonatomic, strong) SomeViewController *someViewController;
...
self.someViewController = [[SomeViewController alloc] initWithView:imgView];
[self addChildViewController:self.someViewController];
self.someViewController.view.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.mainView addSubview:self.someViewController.view];
Why would it not get released by the following?
__weak MainViewController *weakSelf = self;
self.someViewController.didCloseBlock = ^{
[weakSelf.someViewController.view removeFromSuperview];
[weakSelf.someViewController willMoveToParentViewController:nil];
[weakSelf.someViewController removeFromParentViewController];
weakSelf.someViewController = nil;
};
I can tell it's not getting released because if I keep opening and closing the view controller (creating a new instance each time I open one), it causes low memory warnings (and then a crash on iOS5), and in SomeViewController didReceiveMemoryWarning, I see a log for the number of times I've created a new SomeViewController. For example, when I get the memory warning after opening 9 new SomeViewControllers, I will get 9 didReceiveMemoryWarning logs, indicating that I have 9 SomeViewController instances in memory, even though I'm nilling each one out in the code above.
You're retaining your view once in your property with the strong annotation and again with self.someViewController = [[SomeViewController alloc] initWithView:imgView];
Using the synthesized variable should get rid of this:
_someViewController = [[SomeViewController alloc] initWithView:imgView];
If you're not using ARC, you can use self.someViewController = [[[SomeViewController alloc] initWithView:imgView] autorelease];
I'd probably go for the first option, ARC or not though.
You are just setting the block didCloseBlock, nothing else actually. Do you execute it?

iOS ZXingWidget - use view of ZXingWidgetViewController in own ViewController.view as subview

I am trying to use the iOS zxing Widget for QR Code Scanning. I have a ViewController which is pushed as an Item in my UINavigationController or presented Modally from another ViewController. This ViewController has a SegmentedControl for 3 different views. Two of those Views are UIWebViews which load simple Websites, nothing special about them.
The selection looks something like this:
- (IBAction)segmentedControlValueChanged:(id)sender {
NSString *urlString;
ZXingWidgetController *widController;
QRCodeReader* qrcodeReader;
NSSet *readers;
switch (segmentedControl.selectedSegmentIndex) {
case 0:
[self.view bringSubviewToFront:self.productSearchWebView];
urlString = [[SACommunicationService sharedCommunicationService] getURLforKey:kURLTypeProductSearch];
[self.productSearchWebView loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]]];
break;
case 1:
[self.view bringSubviewToFront:self.marketSearchWebView];
urlString = [[SACommunicationService sharedCommunicationService] getURLforKey:kURLTypeMarketSearch];
[self.marketSearchWebView loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]]];
break;
case 2:
widController = [[ZXingWidgetController alloc] initWithDelegate:self showCancel:YES OneDMode:NO];
qrcodeReader = [[QRCodeReader alloc] init];
readers = [[NSSet alloc] initWithObjects:qrcodeReader,nil];
widController.readers = readers;
[self.QRCodeScannerView addSubview:widController.view];
[self.view bringSubviewToFront:self.QRCodeScannerView];
break;
default:
break;
}
}
I tried to debug and go step by step and find out where the problem comes from:
Decoder (which is part of the underlying ZXing logic) tries to call "failedToDecodeImage:" from its delegate (which should be the ZXingWidgetController class) and crashes (EXC_BAD_ACCESS)
While stepping through I found out that the "cancelled" Method of the ZXingWidgetController gets called. Now I don't really know why this method gets called. The Widget shouldn't stop right after initializing and starting the decoder.
So the answer is a very simple one.
I was using iOS 5.0 and ARC. The ZXing ViewController is instantiated locally inside the method. Since the ViewController itself does not get viewed ARC sets a release at the end of the method and the ViewController gets freed. Since the ViewController is released, the view which was retained by the ViewController will be released as well. Cancelled is called because the Main ViewController does not exist anymore and calling some method on a nil pointer results in a BAD_ACCESS.
The Solution here was to set the ZXingViewController as a global strong property. This kept the object from being released right at the end of that method and thus the view which was added as a subview to another ViewControllers view was held in memory as long as the ViewController was alive.
You're not supposed to add controller views as subviews of another view. You're suposed to present controllers using the various UIViewController mechanisms.
By doing what you're doing, you're violating UIViewController contracts. The widget isn't getting things like viewWillAppear, viewDidAppear, etc.
If you want to use ZXing at the UIView/CALayer level instead of the UIViewController level, look at the classes in the ZXing objc directory.
Try this... also in the .h file make this ZXingWidgetController *widController;
And also to the viewScanner set clipToBounds to true.
-(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewDidAppear:animated];
[self performSelector:#selector(openScanner) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.5];
}
-(void)openScanner
{
self.widController = [[ZXingWidgetController alloc] initMiniWithDelegate:self showCancel:NO OneDMode:YES];
NSMutableSet *readers = [[NSMutableSet alloc ] init];
MultiFormatReader* reader = [[MultiFormatReader alloc] init];
[readers addObject:reader];
self.widController.readers = readers;
[viewScanner addSubview:self.widController.view];
}

Objective-C memory management issues

I am new to iPhone programming and Objective-C.
I am building a View-based application.
The problem is that none of the UIViewController's dealloc functions are ever called.
I have decided to unload all my retained objects programmaticaly, right before presenting the next UIViewController class.
I have resolved all the leaks detected by Xcode, tested the application with Leaks and Allocations Tools and everything seams OK, but the memory used builds up to around 180 MB and the app crashes.
The self.retainCount before presenting the next UIViewController is 1, the objects owned are released and the pointers are nil, but still the memory builds up.
Can you give me a clue? If needed I will post some code samples. Or can you send me some references to something like Objective-C memory management 101?
This is my interface:
#interface GameScreen : UIViewController
{
IBOutlet UILabel *timeLabel;
IBOutlet UIView *gameView;
IBOutlet UIImageView *gameViewFrame;
IBOutlet UIButton *showOutlineButton;
UIImage *puzzleImage;
UIView *optionsView;
UIView *blockView;
NSTimer *timer;
UIImageView *viewOriginalPicture;
SHKActivityIndicator *activityIndicator;
BOOL originalPictureShown;
BOOL outLineShown;
}
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UILabel *timeLabel;
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIView *gameView;
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIImageView *gameViewFrame;
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIButton *showOutlineButton;
#property (nonatomic, retain) UIImage *puzzleImage;
And here is the implementation:
- (id) initWithPuzzleImage: (UIImage *) img
{
if((self = [super init]))
{
puzzleImage = [[UIImage alloc] init];
puzzleImage = img;
}
return self;
}
This is the function called when the user taps the exit button:
- (void) onExit
{
[timer invalidate];
CurrentMinuts = 0;
CurrentSeconds = 0;
//remove piece configurations
[pieceConfigMatrix removeAllObjects];
[pieceFramesMatrix removeAllObjects];
PuzzleViewController *modalView = [[PuzzleViewController alloc] init];
[self unloadObjects];
[self presentModalViewController:modalView animated:YES];
[modalView release];
}
And the unloadObjects function:
- (void) unloadObjects
{
[self resignFirstResponder];
[viewOriginalPicture release];
viewOriginalPicture = nil;
[timeLabel release];
timeLabel = nil;
[gameView release];
gameView = nil;
[originalImage release];
originalImage = nil;
[gameViewFrame release];
gameViewFrame = nil;
[timer release];
[showOutlineButton release];
showOutlineButton = nil;
}
I have a lead of what I do wrong, but I am not sure. Let me explain. I am adding the puzzle pieces to the 'gameView' property. For this, I have a 'SplitImage' object. The following function is called in - (void) viewDidLoad:
- (void) generatePuzzleWithImage:(UIImage *) image
{
SplitImage *splitSystem = [[SplitImage alloc] initWithImage:image andPuzzleSize:gPuzzleSize];
[splitSystem splitImageAndAddToView:self.gameView];
[splitSystem release];
}
Next, initialization function for the SplitImage class and the splitImageAndAddToView function:
- (id) initWithImage: (UIImage *) image andPuzzleSize: (int) pSize
{
if((self = [super init]))
{
UIImage *aux = [[[UIImage alloc] init] autorelease];
pieceCenterSize = [SplitImage puzzlePieceSizeForNumberOfPieces:pSize];
UIImage *outSideBallSample = [UIImage imageNamed:#"sampleHorizontal.jpg"]; //convexity size for puzzle size
outSideBallSample = [outSideBallSample resizedImageWithContentMode:UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFit bounds:CGSizeMake(pieceCenterSize, pieceCenterSize) interpolationQuality:kCGInterpolationHigh];
outSideBallSize = roundf(outSideBallSample.size.height);
puzzleSize = pieceCenterSize * pSize;
pieceNumber = pSize;
if(image.size.height < puzzleSize || image.size.height > puzzleSize || image.size.width < puzzleSize || image.size.width > puzzleSize)
{
aux = [SplitImage resizeImageForPuzzle:image withSize:puzzleSize];
aux = [SplitImage cropImageForPuzzle:aux withSize:puzzleSize];
}
aux = [aux imageWithAlpha];
originalImage = [[UIImage imageWithCGImage:aux.CGImage] retain];
mainImage = aux.CGImage;
imageSize = CGSizeMake(aux.size.width, aux.size.height);
NSLog(#"%#", NSStringFromCGSize(imageSize));
splitImageSize = CGSizeMake(pieceCenterSize + 2*outSideBallSize, pieceCenterSize+2*outSideBallSize);
}
return self;
}
- (void) splitImageAndAddToView: (UIView *) view
{
for (int i = 0; i < pieceNumber; i++)
for(int j = 0; j < pieceNumber; j++)
//some code
UIImage *mask;
mask = [self randomlyRetriveMaskWithPrefix:1 forPieceAtI:i andJ:j];
CGImageRef split = CGImageCreateWithImageInRect(mainImage, cuttingRect);
PuzzlePiece *splitView = [[PuzzlePiece alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageWithCGImage:split] andMask:mask centerSize:pieceCenterSize objectMatrixPosition:i*pieceNumber+j outSideBallSize:outSideBallSize pieceType:pieceType pieceFrame:cuttingRect];
[pieceFramesMatrix addObject:[NSValue valueWithCGRect:cuttingRect]];
[splitView setTag:(i+1)*100+j];
[view addSubview:splitView];
CGImageRelease(split);
[splitView release];
}
Thank you,
Andrei
Objective-C memory management 101 is here:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/MemoryMgmt/MemoryMgmt.html
Ignore the stuff on garbage collection, it isn't available for iOS.
It's not normal to release objects before presenting the next UIViewController.
Assuming you have a NIB, its contents will be loaded the first time that you (or the system) accesses the view member. Your view controller will get a call to loadView, then subsequently to viewDidLoad. If you have any views you want to add programmatically, you can do that in loadView or viewDidLoad, if you want to interrogate objects loaded from the NIB then you can do that in viewDidLoad.
Once loaded, the view will remain in memory unless and until a low memory warning occurs. At that point it'll be released. You'll get viewDidUnload. You should release anything view related that you've still got an owning reference to in there, and set to nil any weak references you may have.
Any attempt to access the view property subsequently will cause the NIB to be reloaded, etc.
So, when presenting a new UIViewController, just present it. If you create objects that are used only for display of that controller then do so on viewDidLoad, and release them on viewDidUnload.
That all being said, the Leaks tool in Instruments should be able to tell you which types of object are leaking and where you first allocated them, so it makes finding leaks really quite easy. The only thing to watch out for is that if one object handles its properties/members entirely correctly but is itself leaked then anything it creates will generally also leak. So when something leaks, check the thing that created it isn't also leaking before tearing your hair out over why you can't find a problem.
First, retainCount is useless.
Activity Monitor is pretty close to just as useless. As well, the behavior in the simulator can be quite different on the memory use front. Better to focus debugging of a problem like this on the device.
Next, this:
The problem is that none of the
UIViewController's dealloc functions
are ever called. I have decided to
unload all my retained objects
programmaticaly, right before
presenting the next UIViewController
class.
Any time you find yourself programmatically working around incorrect behavior, you are just creating more bugs.
Step back from your custom hack and figure out why the dealloc isn't being called. Something somewhere is over-retaining the object. The allocations instrument with retain tracking turned on will show you exactly where all retains and releases are sent to the errant objects.
Leaks likely won't show anything if whatever is retaining the objects is still reachable from a global or the stack (i.e. leaks are objects that can never be used by your program again -- but there are many more ways to explode memory use without it being truly a leak).
You should also "Build and Analyze", then fix any problems it identifies.
Next, if you are seeing memory accretion of repeated operations on the user's part, then Heapshot analysis is extremely effective at figure out exactly what has gone wrong.
Some specific comments:
puzzleImage = [[UIImage alloc] init];
puzzleImage = img;
2 bugs; you are leaking a UIImage and not retaining img. That your app doesn't crash in light of the above code indicates that there is likely an over-retain elsewhere.
retainCount is not a reliable debugging tool.
You should never pay attention to or rely on retainCount. Just because you released it does not mean that some part of the program does not still have a reference to it. retainCount has no value.
Generally as a rule of thumb. If you use 'alloc' you must 'release' at some point.
Unless ofcourse you have put it into an autorelease pool.
Leaks should be able to point you to the objects that are leaking, using that, narrow down to where those objects are added, stored etc.
Post examples of your code on how you instantiate objects and where you release them, you maybe doing something wrong early on.
edit: apologies, i put 'init' not 'alloc' previously, thank you dreamlax, early morning mistake.

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