Problem with a simple button click Xcode IphoneSDK

Question

not sure what i am doing wrong here. I just want a button to nslog a string.
.h file
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "PageOneViewController.h"
@interface HomeViewController : UIViewController {
NSString *mln;
NSString *mls;
@property (readwrite, retain) NSString *mln;
@property (readwrite, retain) NSString *mls;
-(void)selectedmln:(NSString *)themln;
@end
important sections of the .m file
#import "HomeViewController.h"
#import "Constants.h"
@implementation HomeViewController
@synthesize mln, mls;
-(void)selectedmln:(NSString *)themln {
NSArray *mlnmls = [themln componentsSeparatedByString:@"+"];
NSLog(@"Selected MLN: %@",[mlnmls objectAtIndex:0]);
NSLog(@"Selected MLS: %@",[mlnmls objectAtIndex:1]);
mln = [mlnmls objectAtIndex:0];
mls = [mlnmls objectAtIndex:1];
- (void)viewDidLoad {
self.title = @"View";
UIBarButtonItem *addButton = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
initWithTitle:NSLocalizedString(@"AddFavTitle", @"")
style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered
target:self
action:@selector(addAction:)] autorelease];
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = addButton;
[super viewDidLoad];
- (void)addAction:(id)sender
NSLog(@"Steps: %@",@"entered add item");
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem.title = @"Added";
NSLog(@"added: %@",mln); // mln is an 8 digit number but not cast as an int
selectedmln() get passed something like "12345678+s" from the PageOneViewController everything works fine until it comes to the NSLog event in the addAction()
silent crash with nothing helpful in the console.
any Ideas?
Jason

Answer 1

Oops - I overlooked that. Then the solution is:
self.mln = whatever
instead of what I said the first time. Using 'self' accesses the generated property. Just calling 'mln' like you were sets the instance variable directly bypassing the property method and is auto generated retain.
And yes, as pointed out, you must still release it yourself in dealloc.