I have been trying to figure out the intricacies of the .NET garbage collection system and I have a question related to C# reference parameters. If I understand correctly, variables defined in a method are stored on the stack and are not affected by garbage collection. So, in this example: public class Test { public Test() { } public int DoIt() { int t = 7; Increment(ref t); return t; } private int Increment(ref int p) { p++; } } the return value of DoIt() will be 8. Since the location of t is on the stack, then that memory cannot be garbage collected or compacted and the reference variable in Increment() will always point to the proper contents of t. However, suppose we have: public class Test { private int t = 7; public Test() { } public int DoIt() { Increment(ref t); return t; } private int Increment(ref int p) { p++; } } Now, t is stored on the heap as it is a value of a specific instance of my class. Isn't this possibly a problem if I pass this value as a reference parameter? If I pass t as a reference parameter, p will point to the current location of t. However, if the garbage collector moves this object during a compact, won't that mess up the reference to t in Increment()? Or does the garbage collector update even references created by passing reference parameters? Do I have to worry about this at all? The only mention of worrying about memory being compacted on MSDN (that I can find) is in relation to passing managed references to unmanaged code. Hopefully that's because I don't have to worry about any managed references in managed code. :)