[THRIFT-1340] Add support of ARC to Objective-C

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 0.7
• Fix Version/s: 0.9
• Component/s: Cocoa - Compiler, Cocoa - Library

Environment

Mac OS X Lion, iOS 4.2, 4.3, 5.0..

• Assignee: HIRANO Satoshi
• Reporter: HIRANO Satoshi
• Created: 12/Sep/11 02:33
• Updated: 26/Dec/11 14:57
• Resolved: 06/Dec/11 01:07

Description

Objective-C in Xcode 4.2 supports ARC (Automatic Reference Counting, not GC but similar) and now it is the default both on OS X Lion and iOS 5. (ARC works on iOS 4.2 or higher.)

The conventional Objective-C code includes many retain/release/autorelease for maintaining the life time of objects.

Since the latest Objective-C compiler automatically generates stubs for reference counting, code should not include any retain/release/autorelease.

Many Mac OS/iOS projects are moving to ARC mode. Although we can specify a compiler flag which tells ARC or no-ARC file by file in Xcode 4.2, there is no means to tell the Xcode that files generated by the thrift compiler are no-ARC. Xcode produces many error messages like "retain is not allowed in ARC mode".
So, the thrift compiler should support ARC mode.

What we need are:

1) add -objc-arc flag to the thrift compiler.
2) If -objc-arc flag exists, omit generating code for retain/release/autorelease.

Please look at "Programming with ARC reference notes" in iOS developer library.

http://andpdas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ARCProgrammingGuide.pdf

Issue Links

• relates to: THRIFT-1430 Fixes for property warnings generated in struct headers