Does an IBOutlet needs to be a property & synthesized?

Question

In most examples I see the following setup of IBOutlets:

(Example A)

FooController.h:

@interface FooController : UIViewController {
    UILabel *fooLabel         


        

Answer 1

The end result is exactly the same, but you have to keep a few things in mind:

• When using instance fields as outlets, you should NOT release them in dealloc.

• When using properties that have the (retain) attribute, you have to release the property in dealloc (using self.property=nil or by releasing the backing variable). This makes it a lot more transparent as to what's going on.

Actually it all comes down to the same old rule: "thou shalt release what you alloc/retain". So in case you use an instance field as outlet, you didn't alloc/retain it, so you shouldn't release it.