Creating multiple identical CCSprites - iphone

Question

Is there a clean and efficient way to create an arbitrary number of identical CCSprites?
I really just need a tag to reference them for later removal.
For example in my game I am displaying the number of lives in a HUD:
- (void)displayOneLife
{
CGPoint positionOne = ccp(90, 450);
CCSprite *life1 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
[life1 setPosition:positionOne];
[life1 setScale:0.5f];
[self addChild:life1 z:5 tag:1];
}
- (void)displayTwoLives
{
CGPoint positionOne = ccp(90, 450);
CGPoint positionTwo = ccp(105, 450);
CCSprite *life1 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
CCSprite *life2 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
[life1 setScale:0.5f];
[life2 setScale:0.5f];
[life1 setPosition:positionOne];
[life2 setPosition:positionTwo];
[self addChild:life1 z:5 tag:1];
[self addChild:life2 z:5 tag:2];
}
- (void)displayThreeLives
{
CGPoint positionOne = ccp(90, 450);
CGPoint positionTwo = ccp(105, 450);
CGPoint positionThree = ccp(120, 450);
CCSprite *life1 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
CCSprite *life2 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
CCSprite *life3 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
[life1 setPosition:positionOne];
[life2 setPosition:positionTwo];
[life3 setPosition:positionThree];
[life1 setScale:0.5f];
[life2 setScale:0.5f];
[life3 setScale:0.5f];
[self addChild:life1 z:5 tag:1];
[self addChild:life2 z:5 tag:2];
[self addChild:life3 z:5 tag:3];
}

Answer 1

Actually, the CCSprite constructor looks up in cocos' texture cache, and if the cache already contains the texture, il reuses its texture. So you could simplify further by removing the *texture (which i believe is leaked here), and just use do this:
- (void)displayLifes:(int) nrOfLifes
{
CGPoint position = ccp(90, 450);
for(int i = 1 ; i <= nrOfLifes ; i++)
{
CCSprite *life = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:#"life.png"];
[life setPosition:position];
[life setScale:0.5f];
[self addChild:life z:5 tag:i];
position.x += 15;
}
}

Answer 2

Create a CCTexture2D using your image and then init all of the sprites using that texture.
This way you only load the image once.
Hope this helps.
EDIT:
Also , you can add them dynamically. Like this:
- (void)displayLifes:(int) nrOfLifes
{
CGPoint position = ccp(90, 450);
CCTexture2D *texture = [[[CCTexture2D alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"life.png"]]autorelease];
for(int i = 1 ; i <= nrOfLifes ; i++)
{
CCSprite *life = [CCSprite spriteWithTexture:texture];
[life setPosition:position];
[life setScale:0.5f];
[self addChild:life z:5 tag:i];
position.x += 15;
}
}
Cheers!