Garbage Collector

Het2109

I couldn't find any sample where they have shown the exact use of calling garbage collector explicitely. For example what I think is if I am using Interop, say object of Excel file in .Net, it is good to call GC.Collect to free up the memory. Is what i think correct? What are the other scenarios when we should use Garbage Collector ? Thanks for your help in advance.

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Scott Dorman

Het2109 wrote:

it is good to call GC.Collect to free up the memory.

It's almost never a good idea to call GC.Collect directly. Just because you are using Interop, it will depend on what you are doing. If you are directly allocating memory or translating structures to pointers (or back again) using any of the methods on the Marshal class then you need to be very careful about allocating and deallocating memory using the appropriate methods on the Marshal class.

Het2109 wrote:

What are the other scenarios when we should use Garbage Collector ?

Any time you are writing managed code you're using the garbage collector. If the class you are using implements the IDisposable interface (or provides a Dispose method) you should call Dispose as soon as you can after you're done using that class. See this article[^] for more information.

Scott. —In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday. —Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai

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Het2109

Thanks Scott for your reply and article, it really helped me get rid of my confusion and get to know more of GC.

Het Waghela :)Be Humble in Victory and Strong in Defeat.:) Het Waghela, Blog|Het Waghela DotNet Questions Link|More Links

Scott Dorman

Het2109 wrote:

Thanks Scott for your reply and article, it really helped me get rid of my confusion and get to know more of GC.

Glad to help.

Scott. —In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday. —Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai

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Mark Churchill

Yeah it can be counterproductive to call GC.Collect directly. IIRC one side effect is that objects that survive collection will move quicker into higher generations, and be less likely to be looked at in following collections.

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