This document helped me out a bit: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/MemoryMgmt/MemoryMgmt.html http://developer.apple.com/documentation

This document helped me out a bit: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/MemoryMgmt/MemoryMgmt.html http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Me... Also, this has a few rules you can follow: http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Technical/2001-03-11.01.html http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Technical/2001-03-11.01.htm... Just remember that adding elements to containers bumps their retain counts. So the following is a common pattern for me: MyClass *c = [[MyClass alloc] init]; [arr addObject:c]; [c release]; If you're returning an object from a method, you probably want to autorelease it.