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Weak reference count is used in memory management systems with reference counting (for example, in ARC on iOS) to prevent cyclic dependencies.

Main idea:

  • Strong references increase the ownership count of an object, preventing its deletion.
  • Weak references do not increase the ownership count, thus they do not prevent the object from being deleted.

Role of the weak reference count:

  • Allows tracking how many weak references point to an object.
  • When the object is deleted (the strong reference count reaches zero), weak references are automatically nulled to avoid dangling pointers.

Example: if two objects refer to each other with strong references, they will never be deleted. Using weak references breaks the cycle, allowing the system to correctly free memory.