NSString property: copy or retain?

Question

Let\'s say I have a class called SomeClass with a string property name:

@interface SomeClass : NSObject
{
    NSString* name;
}

@p         


        

Answer 1

Through this example copy and retain can be explained like:

NSMutableString *someName = [NSMutableString stringWithString:@"Chris"];

Person *p = [[[Person alloc] init] autorelease];
p.name = someName;

[someName setString:@"Debajit"];

if the property is of type copy then ,

a new copy will be created for the [Person name] string that will hold the contents of someName string. Now any operation on someName string will have no effect on [Person name].

[Person name] and someName strings will have different memory addresses.

But in case of retain,

both the [Person name] will hold the same memory address as of somename string, just the retain count of somename string will be incremented by 1.

So any change in somename string will be reflected in [Person name] string.