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How to check object’s reference count in Swift 3?

Sooner or later, you will face the problem with object which are not deallocating. How to check if object gets deallocated? Just use deinit method like below:

deinit {
    print("I'm deallocating \(self)")
}

If you won’t see such message when you think you class should be gone, the easiest way is to debug allocations. Because the most common reason for such behavior are strong references, you can print allocation counter this way:

print("ARC count \(CFGetRetainCount(self))")

But where to put this? First of all, in all you initialization methods. Just add some those prints after each few lines, and you should see where counter is growing. The same in cleanup methods, or if you dont have any, you can put this somewhere when your view controller is closing, like:

self.dismiss(animated: false) {
            print("VC is closing \(self.myobject)")
        }

And how to avoid strong references? The most common mistake, is using self in blocks, this is the place where you should use [unowned self], this way:

Timer.scheduledTimer(withTimeInterval: 1, repeats: true, block: { [unowned self] (timer) in
                self.myobject.doSomething()
            })

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