Objective-C ARC Patterns

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SKILL.md

Objective-C ARC Patterns

Introduction

Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) is Objective-C's memory management system that automatically inserts retain and release calls at compile time. ARC eliminates most manual memory management while providing deterministic memory behavior and preventing common memory bugs like use-after-free and double-free.

Unlike garbage collection, ARC provides immediate deallocation when reference counts reach zero, making it suitable for resource-constrained environments like iOS. Understanding ARC's ownership rules, qualifiers, and patterns is essential for writing memory-safe Objective-C code and avoiding retain cycles.

This skill covers strong and weak references, ownership qualifiers, retain cycles, Core Foundation bridging, and best practices for ARC-based memory management.

Strong and Weak References

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