I'd replace 'usually' with 'sometimes' there. malloc() is
absolutely fine (and should be preferred) as long as it is not used
to store object pointers and it is matched with free() in -
finalize. I'd also add that it CAN be used with object pointers as
long as CFRetain() is called on them (rather than -retain) in Apple-
land, so we should support this in GNUstep. Of course, if you're
storing object pointers then NSMutableArray is probably a better bet.
Using objc_malloc() for something that is stored in an ivar and
contains non-object types is almost always wrong - you're burdening
the GC for no benefit.
Actually, I'm not entirely sure; it makes some sense to use malloc()
for memory which is allocated and never released (and never
references any garbage-collected memory); but for everything else, the
boehm garbage collector is not limited to ObjC objects;
objc_malloc() works with normal C memory allocations too - the memory
is automatically garbage collected as required. :-)
If boehm garbage collection is being used, I can't see a particular
reason to manage C memory manually using malloc() and free();
using objc_malloc() and objc_free() (btw, objc_free() is an empty
operation in that case) provides garbage collection for C memory
too, and makes sure that you don't crash because you forget that you
have a reference to an garbage-collected Objective-C object
in your C memory.
So, I guess the traditional recommendation of always using
objc_malloc() and objc_free() instead of malloc() and free() actually
makes sense.
Unfortunately, Objective-C garbage collection as implemented by Apple
is rather different.
Thanks
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