All 18 Memory & Garbage Collection questions
More in Memory & Garbage Collection
What is the difference between managed and unmanaged resources? What is the difference between the stack and the heap in .NET memory management? What are .NET's garbage collection 'generations,' and what's the core assumption behind this design? How does garbage collection in .NET work, and what three phases does a collection cycle go through? What is the IDisposable pattern and why implement it? What is the difference between a finalizer and Dispose? How does the IDisposable pattern and the 'using' statement help manage UNMANAGED resources that the garbage collector doesn't automatically clean up? What is a memory leak in a garbage-collected language like C#, given that the GC handles cleanup automatically? What is boxing and unboxing, and why does it have a real performance cost? What is the difference between Dispose and Finalize in C#, and when should each actually be used?
Advertisement
C# › Memory & Garbage Collection

How does garbage collection work in .NET?

Beginner

Answer

The GC automatically reclaims unreachable managed objects. It is generational (Gen 0/1/2): short-lived objects are collected cheaply in Gen 0, survivors are promoted.
var tmp = new byte[1024]; // Gen 0, collected quickly when unreachable
Real-world example Most request-scoped allocations die in Gen 0, keeping collections cheap.
All 18 Memory & Garbage Collection questions