Why setting to nil after releasing?

Question

I came across this method:

-(void) someMethod {
    NSMutableArray *anArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; 
    // Do stuff with anArray ... 
    [anArray          


        

Answer 1

In this case, it is a pointless waste of key strokes because the variable anArray goes out of scope immediately.

In other cases, where the variable stays in scope for a while after you release the object its pointing to, it is a good idea, because, if you accidentally dereference it, you will get a EXC_BAD_ACCESS which is easy to spot, and if you send a message to it, it will be ignored (except for returning nil / 0).