Memory management issues

[dkynyc]

Hello all, I have been taking a wack at practicing some objective c code.  I ran into the follow issue where an object that had its memory released still returns values assigned to the object.  Here is the code:

Code: (Objective-C)

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "Movie.h"

int main (int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

	Movie *movie = [[Movie alloc] initWithTitle:@"Iron Man"
									  andRating:5
										andYear:2009];
	
	[movie play];
	
	//NSLog(@"Our movie is %@", movie);
	
	NSLog(@"The retain count is: %d", [movie retainCount]);
	
	[movie release];
	
	NSLog(@"The retain count is: %d", [movie retainCount]);

 
	[movie play];
	[pool drain];
    return 0;
}

Here are the header and implementation files for the movie class.  

Code: (Objective-C)

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>


@interface Movie : NSObject {
	NSString *title;
	int rating;
	int year;
}

@property(assign) NSString *title;
@property(assign) int rating;
@property(assign) int year;


-(id)initWithTitle: (NSString *)newTitle 
		 andRating: (int)newRating
		   andYear: (int)newYear;

-(void)setTitle:(NSString *)title;
-(void)play;

@end

Code: (Objective-C)

#import "Movie.h"


@implementation Movie

@synthesize title;
@synthesize rating;
@synthesize year;


-(id)initWithTitle: (NSString *)newTitle 
		 andRating: (int)newRating
		   andYear: (int)newYear {
	
	self = [super init]; // Call NSObject init
	if (nil != self) { // Check if NSObject init was nil
		self.title = newTitle;
		self.rating = newRating;
		self.year = newYear;
	}
	return self;
	//title = newTitle;
	//rating = newRating;
}

-(NSString *)description {
	NSString *oldDescription = [super description];
	return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ title = %@, rating = %d, year = %d", 
										oldDescription, self.title,self.rating,self.year];
}

-(void)setTitle:(NSString *)newTitle {
	title = [newTitle capitalizedString];
}

-(void)play {
	NSLog(@"Playing %@ - Stars = %d - Year = (%d)", self.title, self.rating, self.year);
}

-(void)dealloc {
	NSLog(@"dealloc called");
	[super dealloc];
}

@end

Unsure what the issue is but I can't seem to get the movie object to release.  

After the [movie release] method is called, I call the [movie play] method and it still returns the movie title, rating, and year?

Can anyone chime in on what is wrong?

Thanks

[skochan]

When the object gets destroyed (and dealloc gets called), it really means that its memory is released.  That is, it is available for another to object to use.  However, there's no way to know when that memory is recycled.  So valid data can remain there for some time.   So you can get lucky (as you did) or you can get some random data or your program can end up throwing an exception.  There's no real way to know what's going to happen.

Steve