Clang Source Annotations

Recently I was faced with a dilemma. I was writing code I needed, and then I triggered a Clang Static Analyzer issue. Here is the code a category on NSColor, see if you can figure out whats wrong with it from a Static Analyzer perspective...

-(CGColorRef)cw_cgColor { 
 NSColor *nscolor = [self colorUsingColorSpaceName:NSCalibratedRGBColorSpace]; 
 CGFloat components[4]; 
 [nscolor getRed:&components[0] green:&components[1] blue:&components[2] alpha:&components[3]]; 
 CGColorSpaceRef space = CGColorSpaceCreateWithName(kCGColorSpaceGenericRGB); 
 CGColorRef cgColor = CGColorCreate(space, components); 
 CGColorSpaceRelease(space); 
 return cgColor;
}

While all the code here is perfectly valid, and converts a NSColor to a CGColorRef just fine, the Clang Static Analyzer will trigger an issue on the last line. Why? Because of this

CGColorRef cgColor = CGColorCreate(space, components);

We've created a Core Graphics or Core Foundation object with a create method which means it needs to be freed later on. However we are just returning that object in this method so the compiler has no way to really know that we will free this object later on. If only there was a way to let the Clang Static Analyzer know that whoever calls this needs to free the object and therefore this code isn't leaking.  Well there is, its called Source Annotations. All I did was add CF_RETURNS_RETAINED to the end of the method declaration in the header file and the Clang SA issue went away. So now the declaration looks like

#import <AppKit/AppKit.h>
@interface NSColor (CWNSColorAdditions)
-(CGColorRef)cw_cgColor CF_RETURNS_RETAINED;
@end

This says to the Clang Static Analyzer whoever calls this method will be receiving a Core Graphics object thats retained and therefore the caller needs to free it when its done. I could have also put 'create' or 'copy' in the name of the method, but I wanted it to be nearly identical in name (remember always prefix your names of methods where your extending Apple classes, cw_ is mine in this case) to the name of the CGColor property on UIColor. This is not the only annotation, but if you haven't seen Clang Annotations, you should see whats available for when you run into issues trying to convey to the Clang Static Analyzer what your code is doing.

Clang Static Annalyzer Source Notations http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/annotations.html The above code is from my Zangetsu Framework

Enjoy.