objective c - CGImageRef Memory leak

Question

I'm having a memory leak when using this custom method which returns a CGImageRef. I can't release "cgImage" properly because I have to return it. What chould I do ?

- (CGImageRef)rectRoundedImageRef:(CGRect)rect radius:(int)radius
{
    CGSize contextSize = CGSizeMake(rect.size.width, rect.size.height);     
    CGFloat imageScale = (CGFloat)1.0;
    CGFloat width = contextSize.width;
    CGFloat height = contextSize.height;        
    CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
    CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(NULL, width * imageScale, height * imageScale, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);
    // Draw ...
    // Get your image
    CGImageRef cgImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(context);       
    CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);
    CGContextRelease(context);
    //CGImageRelease(cgImage); //If I release cgImage the app crashes.
    return cgImage;     
}

Answer 1

cgImage is owned by your method, you need to return it and give responsibility to the caller to release it through CFRelease.

You can also return the CGImage wrapped inside a UIImage instance, like this:

UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgImage];
CFRelease(cgImage); //cgImage is retained by the UIImage above
return image;