Repeating NSTimer, weak reference, owning reference or iVar?

Question

I thought I would put this out here as a separate question from my previous retaining-repeating-nstimer-for-later-access as the discussion has moved forward making a new qu

Answer 1

I generally manage the invalidate inside of the accessor so that you never get surprised by a timer accessing you after you think you got rid of it:

@property(nonatomic, retain) NSTimer *walkTimer;
[self setWalkTimer: ti];

- (void)setWalkTimer:(NSTimer *)aTimer
{
    if (aTimer != walkTimer_)
    {
        [aTimer retain];
        [walkTimer invalidate];
        [walkTimer release];
        walkTimer = aTimer;
    }
}
...
...
// Cancel method
[self setWalkTimer:nil];
...
...
// Make a new timer, automatically invalidating the old one
[self setWalkTimer:[... a new timer ...]]
...
...
// dealloc method
[walkTimer_ invalidate];
[walkTimer_ release];
[super dealloc];