Weird memory leak with core data - iphone

Question

Instruments detect a memory leak:
(Leaked Object= "__NSCFString")
This is my code:
-(NSArray*)loadAllPages{
NSManagedObjectContext *context = [self managedObjectContext];
NSFetchRequest *fetchRequest = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init];
NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription
entityForName:#"Page" inManagedObjectContext:context];
[fetchRequest setEntity:entity];
NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc]
initWithKey:#"date" ascending:YES];
[fetchRequest setSortDescriptors:[NSArray arrayWithObject:sortDescriptor]];
[sortDescriptor release];
NSError *error = nil;
myArray = [[NSArray alloc ]initWithArray:[[context executeFetchRequest:fetchRequest error:&error]autorelease]];
[fetchRequest release];
if (myArray == nil)
NSLog(#"%#",error);
return myArray;
}
The line where leak is pointed at is initialization of myArray.
If I do not return myArray, this leak doesn't occur, so this is strange for me.

Answer 1

In this line
myArray = [[NSArray alloc ]initWithArray:[[context executeFetchRequest:fetchRequest error:&error]autorelease]];
the square brackets are slightly wrong.
The autorelease is sent to the result of [context executeFetchRequest:...], not to the allocated array.
[context executeFetchRequest:...] returns an autoreleased array. Sending autorelease to that array is an error. And myArray is allocated, but not released in your code.
The Xcode static analyzer also reports this as an error:
I assume that you meant
myArray = [[[NSArray alloc] initWithArray:[context executeFetchRequest:fetchRequest error:&error]] autorelease];
which would result in an autoreleased array myArray.

Answer 2

If you are not using ARC.
Change return myArray; with return [myArray autorelease];
You are returning an allocated object from your method, the ownership of that object is still with the method, in such scenarios you should return an auroreleased object and retain it on the receiving side. Then the ownership of that object will be with the calling method.