Objective-C >> Is There a Way to Look at an Object Retain Count Table "on the Run"? [duplicate]

Question

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How do I verify reference count in ARC mode? (7 answers)

Closed 8 years ago.

While using ARC, life is much easier in terms of memory management; but, let's say I wish to look at a certain object while the app is running and see how many pointers are pointing to it at each certain point in the code. Is there a way to do that?

Answer 1

You can access the retain count using -retainCount or CFGetRetainCount but it will almost never give you any meaningful or useful information. Objects can be added to autorelease pools, retained by the various internals of the objective-c runtime or Apple frameworks, ARC, etc. You shouldn't really care how many people have retained an object, only whether you need a strong reference to it at any point in time.

Relevant link: whentouseretaincount.com