ARC (Automatic Reference Counting)

Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) is a memory management system used in programming languages like Swift and Objective-C. It automatically keeps track of objects in a program to determine when they are no longer needed. When an object is created, ARC notes that an active reference exists, and when references to that object are removed, ARC detects that it can safely deallocate (free) the memory used by that object. This helps prevent memory leaks and reduces the need for programmers to manually manage memory, making software more efficient and easier to develop.