C# Circular Reference Garbage Collection

Question

Consider the following classes in C#:

class A
{
    public B b;
}

class B
{
    public A a;
}

Later:

{
    A a = new A();
    B b = new B();
    a.b = b;
    b.a = a;
}

The question: When execution falls out of this scope, will either instance be garbage collected, as there is still a reference to each of them, held by the other?

Welp, I'm just bad at searching. – Matthew Kennedy Jun 25 '13 at 00:07 — Matthew Kennedy, Jun 25 '13 at 00:07

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 25 '13 at 00:04

4

Yes, they both will. The GC walks the dependency tree and sees that neither of them are reachable by any other part of the program and will dispose of them properly.

Here is a good MSFT article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/bb985010.aspx

answered Jun 25 '13 at 00:04

edtheprogrammerguy

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6
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Ah, it's that they are unreachable from anywhere else. Thanks. – Matthew Kennedy Jun 25 '13 at 00:05

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

1

Yes, they will be garbage collected. Circular References Cause Memory Leak?

edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

Community

1
1

answered Jun 25 '13 at 00:04

Bill Gregg

7,067
2
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C# Circular Reference Garbage Collection

2 Answers2