What are some examples of when to use Weak References?

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When should weak references be used?

Hi,

When is it good practice to use weak references?

Could somebody provide an example?

Try searching before asking: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5755860/weak-references-in-net — Kevin Hsu, May 20 '11 at 16:04

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 20 '11 at 16:01

1

An example where they could be used is in implementing a caching container.

answered May 20 '11 at 16:01

Darin Dimitrov

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 20 '11 at 16:14

CAB (and its open source equivalent, bbv.Common.EventBroker) uses weak references to allow loosely-coupled event subscriptions between forms (or their MVC controllers).

This allows, for instance, form-A to subscribe to an event on form-B, but still allow form-A to be garbage collected if it were closed first. Normally, if form-A were closed, it would still hang around in memory because the fact that it's subscribed to an event means there's still a reference to it hanging around.

Really, I would argue that most or all event should be weak references.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 20 '11 at 16:04

0

The MSDN description is fairly informative and includes a hypothetical example.

answered May 20 '11 at 16:04

Ryan Emerle

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What are some examples of when to use Weak References?

3 Answers3