How to dealloc memory of an array in iOS?

Question

I created 150 UIwebviews and stored in an NSArray called myArray .After using those webviews , I do not need those 150 webviews . Then I created another 100 UIWebViews and stored in myArray. I thought first 150 webviews will be automatically deallocated. But when i checked in Instruments , 250 web views are alive. How to release the memory manually ? I am using ARC. So I am not able to use release method.Please advise.

Answer 1

Using [NSMutableArray removeAllObjects]:

NSMutableArray *webViews = [NSMutableArray new];

for (NSInteger i = 0; i < 150; i++)
    [webViews addObject:[self createWebView]];

[webViews removeAllObjects];

for (NSInteger i = 0; i < 100; i++)
    [webViews addObject:[self createWebView]];

Answer 2

When adding an object to an array, it gets retained - so you need to empty the array to release the objects.

Incidentally, a UIWebView is a very heavy object. You might consider using one UIWebView, and storing NSURLs in the array, loading them into the UIWebView as needed.

Answer 3

Create an autorelease pool around the code that uses the UIWebViews. Something like this:

@autoreleasepool {
    // Create and use your UIWebViews here.  Put them into an array, do whatever you want with them
}

// When you exit the @autoreleasepool block, the objects you created inside the block will be freed