NSDate memory leak - xcode

Question

I have searched SO among other fora for the answer to this, but whatever I try, it does not seem to get rid of my memory leak. Does anybody have any suggestions?
I get a memory leak of 16 bytes per NSDate in my ViewController every time I present it.
-(void)initialise:(id)sender withDate:(NSDate *)date withMinimumDate:(NSDate *)minimum {
delegate = sender;
self.originalDate = [[NSDate alloc] init];
self.originalDate = date;
self.minimumDate = [[NSDate alloc] init];
self.minimumDate = minimum;
}
- (void)dealloc {
[self.originalDate release];
[self.minimumDate release];
[super dealloc];
}
I have tried releasing and/or making the NSDates nil before allocating them for the first time, and setting them to nil in the dealloc method.
They are declared as nonatomic and retained properties in the Header.
Have I missed something basic here or is there a more complex answer?

Answer 1

You are doing an alloc/init of a NSDate for originalDate, but then immediately abandoning it and setting it equal to the date parameter, possibly leaking the NSDate you created. You're doing this with minimumDate, too.
At a minimum, remove those two lines that do the alloc/init of the two respective NSDate objects that you subsequently abandon in favor for the parameters to the initialise method.
By the way, this problem (and the dealloc problem) would have been highlighted for you if you employed the static analyzer ("Analyze" on "Product" menu or press shift+command+B):
When writing manual reference counting code, the static analyzer is invaluable for identifying issues. You really should have a clean bill of health from the analyzer. You can click on the blue icons and it will often expand with the descriptions and arrows that I show in the above screen snapshot.
Note, this also highlighted the inappropriate use of self.originalDate (instead of _originalDate, or whatever the backing instance variable is) in your dealloc method. As I mentioned in my earlier comment, you should not use accessor methods in dealloc method.

Answer 2

These two lines are creating references to objects that are never released.
self.originalDate = [[NSDate alloc] init];
self.minimumDate = [[NSDate alloc] init];
Seeing as you instantly overwrite these properties with new values, you just need to delete these two lines (which are redundantly allocating NSDate objects that are never used) and your leak should go away.
You should also check whether delegate is properly memory managed too, as I see no release in dealloc for the delegate variable.