ios - Objective C pointers to primitive types -

i came java background , i'm trying figure out if translating following piece of java code:

public class someclass {     private int[] somearray;     //+....other instance variables      public someclass(int arraysize) {         this.somearray = new int[arraysize];         //some other initialization     } } 

could safely translated objective c follows:

@implementation someclass {     int *_myarray;     //some other private fields... }  -(instancetype)initwitharraysize:(int)arraysize {     if(self = [super init]) {         int newarray[arraysize];         _myarray = newarray;         //some other initializations     }     return self; } } 

i'm aware of nsarray , nsnumber boxing above code sounds cleaner , more efficient, specially app need @ cases hold thousands of references someclass. @ same time i'm not sure if primitive pointers safe use arc , whether cause leaks.

i've tried following dummy test see if things work expected:

@implementation someclasstests {     int *_myarray;     //some other private fields... }  - (void)testexample {     int array[] = {4, 2, 1, 0};     _myarray = array;      [self changearray:_myarray];     xctassertequal(_myarray[0], -1);     xctassertequal(_myarray[1], -1);     xctassertequal(_myarray[2], 1); }  -(void)changearray:(int *)array {     array[1] = -1;     array[0] = -1; } } 

the test passed, i'm still not feeling confident.

any thoughts guidance highly appreciated.

your implementation lead serious errors allocate newarray on stack , pass pointer instance variable somearray, once method returns stack recovered, making somearray dangling pointer.

it's more normal in objective-c use nsarray of nsnumber objects this. if want create array can added after initialization, , otherwise modified, use nsmutablearray:

@implementation someclass {     nsmutablearray *_somearray; }  -(instancetype)initwitharraysize:(int)arraysize {     if(self = [super init]) {         _somearray = [[nsmutablearray alloc] initwithcapacity:arraysize];     }     return self; }