How does the Garbage Collector decide when to kill objects held by WeakReferences?

Posted by Kennet Belenky on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Kennet Belenky
Published on 2010-04-20T02:29:39Z Indexed on 2010/04/20 2:33 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 356

Filed under:

garbage-collection

|

weak-references

|

sos.dll

|

sosex

I have an object, which I believe is held only by a WeakReference. I've traced its reference holders using SOS and SOSEX, and both confirm that this is the case (I'm not an SOS expert, so I could be wrong on this point).

The standard explanation of WeakReferences is that the GC ignores them when doing its sweeps. Nonetheless, my object survives an invocation to GC.Collect(GC.MaxGeneration, GCCollectionMode.Forced).

Is it possible for an object that is only referenced with a WeakReference to survive that collection? Is there an even more thorough collection that I can force? Or, should I re-visit my belief that the only references to the object are weak?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about garbage-collection

Strings and Garbage Collection

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have heard conflicting stories on this topic and am looking for a little bit of clarity. How would one dispose of a string object immediately, or at the very least clear traces of it? >>> More
How does Garbage Collection in Java work?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was wondering how the garbage collector in Java deals with the following situation. Object A has a reference to Object B and Object B has a reference to Object C. The main program has a reference to Object A. So you can use Object B trough Object A, and Object C trough Object B trough Object… >>> More
Why other languages don't have automatic garbage collection similar as that of the Java Garbage Coll

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
What are the reason/s behind other languages not having a Garbage Collector? >>> More
Garbage collection behaviour for String.intern()

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
If I use String.intern() to improve performance as I can use "==" to compare interned string, will I run into garbage collection issues. How does the garbage collection mechanism of interned strings differ from normal strings ? >>> More
ASP.Net 4.5 Garbage Collection Improvement

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2013/06/24/asp.net-4.5-garbage-collection-improvement.aspxI just read Five Great .NET Framework 4.5 Features on CodeProject by Shivprasad koirala. Feature 5 in his article mentions the GC background cleanup and has a good explanation… >>> More

Related posts about weak-references

Simple Data Caching using Weak References in WCF

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Given that I have the following WCF service: class LookUpService { public List<County> GetCounties(string state) { var db = new LookUpRepository(); return db.GetCounties(state); } } class County { public string StateCode{get;set;} public string CountyName{get;set;} … >>> More
When to use weak references in Python?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Can anyone explain usage of weak references? The documentation doesn't explain it precisely, it just says that the GC can destroy the object linked to via a weak reference at any time. Then what's the point of having an object that can disappear at any time? What if I need to use it right after it… >>> More
weak references and garbage collection

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Suppose I have a weak reference to a car which has an ordinary reference to an engine. No other references to the car or the engine exist. Can the engine be garbage collected? >>> More
Weak References and Disposable objects.

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
In C# it is possible to create weak references to objects as described here: WeakReference Class In .net some classes also implement the IDisposable interface. Calling the Dispose method of this interface is performed to manually dispose of any managed or unmanaged resources currently being held… >>> More
Question about WeakReferences

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hey there, I've got a question regarding WeakReferences. I'm right now in the process of writing a "Resource Manager" who hast to keep references to created texture objects. I have a Dictionary like: Dictionary<uint, WeakReference> Where the first is, as you allready may guessed, the Resource… >>> More