Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, Fifth Edition

8.2. The Basics of Object Lifetime

When you are building your C# applications, you are correct to assume that the .NET runtime environment will take care of the managed heap without your direct intervention. In fact, the golden rule of .NET memory management is simple:

NOTE

Allocate a class instance onto the managed heap using the new keyword and forget about it.

Once instantiated, the garbage collector will destroy an object when it is no longer needed. The next obvious question, of course, is, "How does the garbage collector determine when an object is no longer needed?" The short (i.e., incomplete) answer is that the garbage collector removes an object from the heap when it is unreachable by any part of your code base. Assume you have a ...