Project without garbage collector osx

Question

in my school we recieved task to do project in any programming language, but with custom data structure and programming language can not have garbage collector. It was recommended to use C ++. But I have better skills in objective-c. So I disable ARC in my Xcode project and now I should create custom data structure like ArrayList in Java. I cant use NSMutableArray or NSArray. It is possible working with memory like in C++ and create custom data structure?

Thank you for response

Answer 1

You have two basic choices:

1. Use struct 's for your data structures and malloc / free (and friends) for your dynamic memory allocation - just as you might in C(++); or
2. You can use NSObject derived classes and alloc / init / new / retain / release (and friends) for your dynamic memory management. To do this you must disable ARC.

Given this is a school task you might wish to check the second is acceptable - you are still using the Objective-C reference-counting machinery, even though you are calling the operations manually. Your professor may not deem that acceptable.

The first choice is more basic, you will be completely responsible for all decisions on when memory is no longer required. Indeed you may choose to implement your own reference counting or even mark-sweep.

HTH