Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Garbage Collection

The garbage collector manages the allocation and release of memory for the application. Each time the new operator is used to create an object, the runtime allocates memory for the object from the managed heap. As long as address space is available, the runtime continues to allocate space for new objects. However, memory is not infinite. Eventually the garbage collector must perform a collection in order to free some memory. The garbage collector's optimizing engine determines the best time to perform a collection. When the garbage collector performs a collection, it checks for objects in the managed heap that are no longer being used by the application and performs the necessary operations to reclaim their memory.

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