Does replaceScene replace only the current scene or does it replace all scenes in Cocos2d

Question

I have a game in Cocos2d with a main scene (game scene) and a button to go to a "Configuration" scene. When the user clicks on the Configuration button in the main scene I use pushScene to go tho the "Configuration" scene. The reason I use pushScene is to allow the user to resume the game where he was left off.

In the "Configuration" scene there are two options: "Cancel" and "Ok". If the user hits "Cancel" I use popScene and the game resumes where it was left of. If the user hits "Ok" I use replaceScene because I want the game to start from the beginning with the new configuration.

So, when the user hits "Ok" I know that the "Configuration" scene is replaced by the new game scene, but does the old game scene gets replaced too? Otherwise, am I doing things correctly or should I implement another way to let the game scene know whether it should resume or restart.

I want to make sure I am not leaking memory by accumulating unreplaced scenes.

Answer 1

The replaceScene method does what it says. It replaces the current scene. If you have 10 scenes pushed onto one another, it will replace the 10th scene and all previous scenes remain.

It's one of the reasons why I don't recommend using pushScene. It's too easy to forget a situation where scenes might get pushed more than they get popped. The other reason is that popScene can't be animated with a transition.

Btw, you can easily test this behavior if you do replaceScene after pushScene, then popScene in the newly replaced scene. You'll see the old scene popping up. Normally if you popScene with just a single scene in the stack it'll throw an assertion.